Posted on 09/02/2003 9:25:52 AM PDT by bedolido
BARTOW, Fla., Sept. 2 — Paula Burcham ran the kind of day care working mothers dream about.Her house was immaculate, the meals for the children were home cooked. Kids would line up to get a hug from “Mama Paula.”
BUT THE FAMILIES who trusted Burcham didn’t know she was giving over-the-counter medicines to their children without their permission. Now they suspect she was using the drugs to sedate cranky little ones.
On August 15, Burcham was sentenced to eight years in prison for giving a 3 1/2-month-old girl a lethal dose of Benadryl to quiet her. And in the 20 months since Grace Olivia Fields’ death, her parents have found they are not alone in their loss.
In the last three years, at least 10 other cases nationwide of day care workers have been investigated or charged for sedating children with cold medicines and cough syrups. Four other babies have died.
Grace’s mother, Tracy Fields, and other parents are now pushing for new laws that would make it a felony for day care workers to give a child medicine without written permission from a parent or a doctor’s order. One state has already passed such a law.
“I don’t want any other parents to go through this,” Tracy Fields said. “It didn’t take a whole lot for this beautiful little baby to die from an over-the-counter medicine.”
There is also a growing movement among medical examiners for greater awareness of the practice, as some pathologists fear babies who died after being drugged were written off as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome cases.
Burcham poured about a tablespoon of children’s Benadryl into a four-ounce bottle of breast milk and fed it to Grace in December 2001. The dose was three times more than what would be needed to sedate an adult.
Burcham later admitted giving the baby the drug, but denied it was to control behavior. Her critics aren’t swayed.
“She found a way to make those kids sleep half the day,” Tracy Fields said, adding her 2 1/2-year-old daughter told her she was given “bubble gum” flavored medicine before nap time at Burcham’s.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
If 10 instances can lead to a new federal law, why not 5, or 3, or just 1.
Let's condition everyone to getting used to federal legislation everytime someone burps.
I'm sure that'll lead to greater freedom.
People who don't want to take care of their own children, and fool themselves that a federal law will make *someone else* a perfect parent to their children.
That said, it would be interesting to compare these statistics (on day care situations) to the numbers of deaths or injuries caused by parents misusing non-prescription medicines. Everyone screws up sometimes; everyone should be more aware that "non-prescription" doesn't mean "harmless in any dosage."
Prior to the infamous lawsuit, coffee cups at McDonald's did not warn that the coffee is hot; does the fact that this warning was not on the coffee cups mean that the coffee is cold?
And because a package doesn't list every conceivable side effect does not mean that it can't happen. Many people have a very cavalier attitude regarding over the counter (OTC)medications. I have seen patients end up on kidney dialysis because they took too much ibuprofen for their back pain. There is a REASON that drug packaging has warnings. Benadryl packaging clearly warns "CHILDREN UNDER 6 YEARS OF AGE CONSULT A DOCTOR". After seeing this story, people will now know why this warning is there.
BTW, it is OK for an infant to use Benadryl in certain situations IF PRESCRIBED BY A DOCTOR.
Yes, it has been prescribed more than once for our one and two year old granddaughters. We meticulously measure out the dosage, and my wife and I double-checked it until we had the routine down. Don't use a spoon; use a graduated dropper. Also, quiz the pharmacist to verify the dosage (avoid metric confusion).
The girls have had no problem tolerating it and it has been effective.
Anyone who can not follow a more-than-usual care procedure in dosing should not be administering it to an infant. I agree with the poster who commented on how potent a sleep inducer Benadryl can be, even for an adult. I myself, 160 lbs. have taken half an adult dose and been knocked out so thoroughly I slept through a cold draft and finally woke up in the morning with the right half of my body barely functional. Be careful.
Yup - those licenses are a life-saver.
I stayed home with my babies and almost never left them with a babysitter at all. I had two good friends I trusted. I'd trust my mother. That's how I solved this problem.
Don't you think that if the baby was sleeping excessively at the sitter's house that the baby wasn't sleeping well at home?
This wouldn't immediately make me think the babsitter was drugging my child, but I'd like to think I would talk to her about the baby's sleep schedule. If it continued that she was "allowing" the baby to sleep all day I'd find another sitter.
None of these parents realized their kids were sleeping too much during the day? No one apparently "dropped in" just to check things out either...
My daughter (who had waited until 38 to have her first child) found a perfect mom with a Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education to watch her son while she continued worked. My son-in-law's business was failing, and they needed the money. This "perfect" mom also homeschooled her own children and took in 3 or 4 additional infants for extra cash.
Well guess who was watching the babies? Let's just say, it wasn't the person with the Master's Degree, and the baby spent most of the day confined to a bed or child seat with little attention. When someone was paying attention to him, he was being dragged around by the neck by one of the teenagers in the house. (I don't know when they got their homeschooling done.) Of course my daughter and son-in-law both came home exhausted from their long days at work. The baby was put right to bed agin.
When my grandson wasn't talking at the appropriate time, my daughter woke up to the problem, quit her job, and enrolled him in remedial education and speech therapy. It took him 3 years of very hard work to catch up with his peers.
She opened a piano school in her home and hires a part time nanny to play with the children when her students are there, and everyone is doing fine. It was a necessary compromise in her career.
If she hadn't had her piano skill to fall back on, I'm sure she would have been teaching computers or doing taxes at night -- anything to be with the children in the day time. (There are two now.) All the remedial education in the world wouldn't have brought my (very smart) grandson up to speed without his mommy there to talk to him when he felt like talking.
No matter how good something thinks their babysitter or day care is --- it's always a very good idea to sometimes take an unannounced half day off --- or get out of work a few hours early --- just to be sure.
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