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Safety is paramount when prescribing for children as overdosing and adverse effects can be serious. Abbreviations such as mcg, mg, ng and mL should be avoided and the full instruction written (e.g. micrograms, nanograms or milligrams). This helps to avoid errors, as doses are as likely to be ng as they are mg depending on the weight of the child and can be easily misread. One vial of drug may contain enough active product to overdose a child by 10 or 100 fold. For example, a vial of morphine sulphate contains 10 mg (10 mL) of substance. In a neonate, the recommended dose is 5–20 μg/kg/h, which in a normal 3 kg baby would only equate to a 15–60 μg (0.15–0.6 mL) dose. Therefore, one vial contains enough solution to significantly overdose the child.

Failure to calculate maximum daily allowances of drugs in children is another common reason for errors. After calculating the individual dose for a child, the daily dose should be correlated against the maximum daily allowance to ensure it does not exceed the allowance for the child's age and weight.