DS has a cold.. medication question.. decongestant??

CodyGH

So we took DS to the doctor because he's really congested and has a cough that sounds like he is coughing up congestion.  Also, there were confirmed cases of RSV at his daycare.  Well, they tested him for RSV and he's negative.  So that's good.  But the pedi gave us a prescription for a decongestant.  I didn't think that babies 4 months old could have a decongestant.  Has anyone ever had their pedi prescribe something like this for their LO?

I looked up the medicine and it says to not use if you are breastfeeding because it can be passed into your milk.  Well, that makes me think that he shouldn't be taking it if I shouldn't be taking it while breastfeeding.  I just want to make sure I make an informed decision of whether or not I want to give this to my child.

FYI, I've searched on safefetus.com and we are going to ask our pharmacist.  Just want to see if any of you ladies have had a similar situation.  TIA!

Hudson_Hawk

I would ask your pharmacist. Doctors are great at diagnosing symptoms, but pharmacists are the experts when it comes to the chemical treatments. I'm a certified pharmacy tech and I would trust the word of any pharmacist when it comes to drugs, side effects and dangers over a doctor any day.

Laura_Lee

Yeah, that sounds kind of strange to me too - I was told nothing but baby tylenol by my pediatrician.

hollelujah*

I can't really comment on chest congestion other than if you're not already running a humidifier in the baby's room try that. 

Our pediatrician did recommend saline nasal drops for our little guy when he was all stuffed up.  It's the same as a nasal spray except you just turn the whole bottle upside down and wait until it starts dripping.  Then put a few drops in each nostril, wait about 30 seconds, then use the bulb syringe to pull out anything that has loosened up. We found that if the baby is on his tummy then gravity helped pull some of the snot out too...

Good luck. Our LO did not like this process...

CodyGH

Hudson_Hawk:

I would ask your pharmacist. Doctors are great at diagnosing symptoms, but pharmacists are the experts when it comes to the chemical treatments. I'm a certified pharmacy tech and I would trust the word of any pharmacist when it comes to drugs, side effects and dangers over a doctor any day.

Thanks!!  We asked the pharmacist just now and they said that the drug has actually been reformulated.  So the pedi prescribed 1/2 a dropper full, but it turns out the old drug had a 1 ml dropper and the new drug has a 3 ml dropper.  So we would have been giving him 3 times too much!  Thank god we asked.  I think I'll start asking the pharmacist more questions about our medications more often.  I don't know why the doctor wouldn't say 1/2 ml instead of 1/2 a dropper full.  At least we caught it.. or rather the pharmacist caught it. 

Also, to other posters, thanks!  We've actually been suctioning his nose out every day (yes, he hates it) and have a humidifier in his room.  It's not doing much, if anything.  I really just want to jump inside his nose and clean that sucker out!  It bothers me that he's all snorty so I don't know how it doesn't bother him!

mrs.kapow

I'm wary of any drugs in infants this small, but I hope it works for you.

Stuff like this scares me: 

https://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAlert/Prescriptions/23912?utm_source=breaking-news&utm_medium=ema