A stuffy nose, a sore throat and a cough: the dreaded signs of a cold. What parent wouldn't want to help alleviate those symptoms in her child? If in the past you've used over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to treat your child's cold, you may want to think twice.

In October 2007, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted to ban over-the-counter (OTC) cold products intended for children under the age of 6. The vote came a week after major manufacturers agreed to withdraw more than a dozen cold products labeled for use in infants and babies.

"The fact is that these medicines were approved decades ago when drugs for children were not even tested in children," says Dr. Ken Haller, a Saint Louis University Associate Professor of Pediatrics. "Numerous studies done since that time have shown that these drugs do not make kids with colds and sore throats feel better any quicker than doing nothing. And over the years thousands of children have been hospitalized and scores of children have died as a result of taking these drugs because of their side effects and the fact that many of these drugs contain multiple active ingredients, which add up to a harmful dose."

Some parents like using these medications to help their child sleep, but Dr. Haller says the antihistamines actually sedate children, which is the last thing you want when a child is congested. "You want them breathing deeply and clearing mucous," Dr. Haller says. "We send a powerful, and I feel, negative, message to kids when we tell them that they always need a drug for every illness."

Dr. Charlotte Cowan, a pediatrician who trained and practiced for years at Boston's MassGeneral Hospital for Children and who now authors children's books about common infectious illnesses, says cold and cough medicines have never been shown to work well in children and instead have been consistently shown to have unwanted side effects.

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