Parents who overuse popular paracetamol-based medicines such as Calpol could be putting their children at risk, according to a leading paediatrician.
Alastair Sutcliffe, professor of paediatrics at University College, London, said parents were wrongly using paracetamol for mild fevers.
Such overuse could lead to higher rates of asthma and ultimately could cause liver, kidney or heart damage, he claimed.
Experts also said it was possible for recommended doses to be exceeded easily, particularly when children are being looked after by several carers.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society say parents should be given more information about when to use paracetamol based medicines.
Professor Sutcliffe said: "Parents are using paracetamol too permissively. They seem to fear fever as an illness per se, which it is not.
"There is evidence that the excess usage of paracetamol is associated with increased rates of asthma, increased rates of liver damage, but less widely known, kidney and heart damage."
Steve Tomlin, spokesman for the RPS said: "Children often go from one care setting to another - with their grandparents or school - and the chances of them getting extra doses might be quite high. You only need two or three days giving an extra dose or two above what is recommended and it is not such a safe drug and can start hitting the liver."
He said parents should speak to a health professional before they first start using paracetamol-based medicines.
A spokesperson for Johnson and Johnson, who manufacture Calpol. said: "Calpol has been trusted by parents for more than 45 years to provide medicines specifically developed for children. Our range of paracetamol based medicines is designed to offer relief from mild to moderate pain and fever."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here