Wisdom Of Sedating Children Prior To Flying

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 468
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While cheap airplane tickets and discount hotel rooms as well as cheap vacation packages often provide the means to travel, parents sometimes sedate children on planes either to make travel easier on themselves or on their fellow passengers.

Doctors have come out and said that drugs such as Benadryl should never be used to sedate a child. Reasons for this advice include potential side effects, including constipation and respiratory problems, and because some children respond to such drugs in the opposite of the intended effect.

Studies have shown that drugged children sometime become very animated and less controllable. The contrary impact to antihistamines contained in many common cold medicines and allergy remedies occurs in between 5 to 10 percent of children. Although such reactions are not deemed medically dangerous, they can take up to a couple of hours to wear off. Even the fine print on such drugs’ labels often warns of potential “excitability.”

Doctors almost universally recommend against sedating children prior to flying and suggest instead that children are well rested prior to getting ...
... on a plane, as well as well fed, and given something to distract them such as a small toy or book while in the air.

Children under the age of 2 tend to have the toughest time staying put in a confined space (such as a plane seat with a seat belt).

Unfortunately they are also the most vulnerable to overdoses and respiratory problems. If a sleep child’s airway becomes blocked, by something as simple as a nose pressed against a seat, sedation can blunt the natural reflex to shift position.

The vast majority of common allergy and cold medicines were not developed as sedatives, particularly not for children.

The bottom line is that experts recommend against sedating children before flying for the convenience of those around them.
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