Category Archive: Baby Care

I felt really disturbed after reading about the case of a 20-month old baby boy who was given double dosage of meds by the pharmacist of a private hospital here in KL in yesterday’s newspapers.  The pharmacist not only prescribed double dosage of fever meds to the toddler, but also double dosage of antibiotics and lozenges!  The dosage was meant for an adult.  When the boy turned pale, sweated profusely and cried incessantly, his mother called the hospital and the nurse there admitted that the dosage given was wrong!!

Reading this reminded me that 1.5 years ago, Baby too was given the wrong dosage of prophylaxis antibiotics  (for the prevention of UTI) by the pharmacist in a supposedly ‘five star’ hospital chain.  The hospital is in Ipoh.  I had brought Baby back to Ipoh to my parents during the long school holidays in 2008.  Fortunately, I was a ‘pro’ in antibiotics dosage after having administered them to Baby since she was 7 weeks old. When I queried the pharmacist, he appeared confused and then I insisted that he called the doctor to reconfirm the dosage.  It was then that he realized his mistake.  What if I am a newbie mother who doesn’t know anything about antibiotics dosage?  My baby would have suffered at the expense of the pharmacist’s carelessness.

So my advice to all mothers is to always double check your child’s meds dosage with the doctor after the pharmacist has given you the meds.  Just spend a few minutes to ask the doctor and your child’s life could be saved. Don’t worry about troubling your doctor.  I’m just speaking from experience.

After given wrong dosage of antibiotics twice by the pharmacists from 2 private hospitals recently, my advise to everyone is that it’s best to double check with your paed after you have received the meds from the pharmacy in the hospital.

First incident – a very well-known private hospital in Ipoh
My paed told me that my baby has to be given 1.2ml of antibiotics once a day.  I was supposed to be given antibiotics enough for 1 month. After receiving the antibiotics from the pharmacist, I double checked the print-out info on the sticker on the bottle of meds. The instruction on the bottle of antibiotics said that the bottle of meds is to be discarded 7 days after reconstitution. However, I was only given 1 bottle and was told to finish the entire bottle, enough to last my baby for 1 month!  The print out stated that the dosage is 1.5ml.  There were 2 gross errors here.  First, the bottle of meds has to be discarded after 7 days and I wasn’t informed.  I was told to feed my baby with the antibiotics for 1 month!  Second, instead of stating a dosage of1.2ml on the print-out sticker for the bottle, it was printed as 1.5ml.  Good thing I am so hands on in handling my baby’s meds, if I were inexperienced, I would have fed her the wrong dosage and fed her the antibiotics which would have gone bad after 7 days.  My baby could have been seriously ill resulting from the hospital’s negligence.

Second incident – a private hospital in KL
That happened yesterday. Over the phone, my paed told me that my baby has to take 2ml of antibiotics. My hubby then went to the hospital pharmacy to collect the meds. When I checked the bottle of meds later, I was shocked to see that the dosage was printed as 3.75ml on the sticker stuck to the bottle of antibiotics. I then called my paed to reconfirm the dosage, which he told me was only 2ml. Good grief, that’s a real gross negligence and if I were a blur sotong mummy who trusts the hospital 100%, my baby would have been given almost double dosage of medication!

After these 2 incidences, I no longer trust any hospital.  I thought my baby would be in safer hands in an expensive private hospital, but I was so wrong.  I think I will call my paed to reconfirm the dosage of the medication and to double check the shelf-life of the medication from now onwards, just to be doubly sure.  When it comes to medication for my baby, I just can’t afford to go wrong. 

When the IV line was prematurely taken off from her hand on Monday night, Baby C had to be given oral antibiotics (Zinnat) at the hospital. Zinnat must have tasted yucky coz Baby C bawled big time and struggled until she puked. Hubby and I spent over half an hour in the hospital coaxing her and forcing the meds into her mouth. I really feel so sorry for Baby C. I really hate forcing my kids to swallow their meds coz I had a real traumatic time eating antibiotics (the stinky and bitter pink colored ones) when I was 8 years old. When I kept throwing up the antibiotics, my parents forced me to drink it too… and in the end, I still puked.  That incident is still etched in my mind and because of this, I am really very patient when it comes to feeding my kids meds coz I know how terrible it feels swallowing those yucky stuff, only to have it forced out again painfully.   Anyway, back to Baby C.  When we finally forced fed her 6ml of antibiotics,  she puked everything out in the car…. all on my pants.

After the incident in the hospital, Baby C has developed a phobia whenever we feed her anything using a spoon or a syringe. The moment I put a bib on her, she would start crying and the minute she sees me holding a spoon, she would turn her head left and right to avoid the spoon or syringe, struggle, push my hand away forcefully, squeeze my hands and purse her lips. It’s a real struggle feeding her antibiotics now and she has to take antibiotics twice daily for 2 weeks. This evening, my maid and I spent over 30 minutes just feeding her 1.2ml of antibiotics. That’s only about 3/4 teaspoon but Baby C was struggling, crying and puked….. and I had to feed her all over again. I used a quarter slice of white bread, 1/2 a banana, a black grape and a small carrot stick to let her chew on to go with the meds but she still puked.    She is terribly terrified of meds after the hospital incident and I hope she will get over this phobia soon coz she has to be on antibiotics for a few more years until she outgrows her Kidney Reflux.  It is really exhausting feeding her the meds everyday.  I forsee the situation will only get worse as she grows coz she will gain more strength to struggle and push me away.  I can only pray that God will heal her from Kidney Reflux and get us both out from this nightmare soon.