Читать книгу Fundamentals of Pharmacology for Children's Nurses - Группа авторов - Страница 34

Babies are unable to communicate their needs and feelings and assessment of a baby through body language and vital signs is important. The first 12 months of life involve rapid stages of development, from milk feeds through weaning to tolerating solid food as one example. Taste is developing and unusual tastes or textures can often be spat out or refused. It has been recommended that new foods should be introduced to babies four times before giving up, but this might not be possible with medicines. In babies and young children who cannot swallow tablets, liquid medicines or syrups are prescribed. Some liquid medicines/syrups do not have a palatable taste, antibiotics being the most common. Flucloxacillin is an example of a syrup that has a very bitter taste and is not palatable to many. Baguley et al. (2012) recommend not prescribing such medications without first allowing the child to taste it. If a child will not comply with taking the medication, this increases the stress for the parent(s)/carers in encouraging the child to take the medication. It also increases the risk of non‐concordance; the infection or condition not being treated appropriately and the development of drug resistance for the child. If a child is refusing to take liquid medicine due to the taste, further discussion should be had with the prescriber and involve the parent and child (where possible) to promote concordance to treatment.

Additional negative aspects to liquid medicines or syrups are that they often have sugar added to sweeten the taste and promote concordance in taking the medication (Baguley et al., 2012). If a medicine is to be taken long‐term or prescribed for a child with diabetes mellitus, a sugar‐free version should be considered if a tablet is not an option. This will also aid dental health, where taking sugary medicine regularly throughout the day can result in tooth decay. In Chapter 4 drug formulations are discussed.