Calpol Sugar Free Infant Suspension Sachets Strawberry Flavour 2+ Months, 12 x 5ml

Product Information

Both the NHS and NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) say you should avoid giving an ibuprofen-based medicine and a paracetamol-based one (such as Calpol) together to a baby or a child under 16 unless a doctor has specifically advised it. But Chris Steele, doctor-in-residence on ITV’s This Morning programme, issued a robust defence of the brand on air. “Every parent will be thankful for the paracetamol Calpol syrup,” he said. “It’s not addictive. However, parents, I think, are psychologically dependent on Calpol, because when their children are ill they do go for the Calpol. Well, that’s all right, so long as you follow the recommended dosage. It’s totally safe.” Like all paracetamol products, Calpol eases pain and lowers fever, but we give it to babies who are too young to tell us what is wrong with them in the hope it will soothe them. For many, Calpol is a panacea, a cure for baby-crying, a reliable way to settle your child and send them off to sleep. At a time when we are being forced to recognise the dangers of so many everyday items, from plastics to bacon to toilet seats, we fear that the ubiquitous solution in the brown glass bottle must have some kind of dark side.

CALPOL ® Infant Original Suspension, CALPOL ® Infant Suspension Sachets, CALPOL ® Sugar Free Infant Suspension, CALPOL ® Sugar Free Infant Suspension Sachets and CALPOL ® Infant Sugar Free Colour Free 120mg/5ml Oral Suspension contain paracetamol, can be used in infants from 2 months old (weighing over 4kg and not premature). For pain and fever. CALPOL ® SIXPLUS™ Suspension, CALPOL ® SIXPLUS™ Sugar Free Suspension and CALPOL ® SIXPLUS™ Fastmelts contain paracetamol,can be used in children from 6 years old. For pain and fever. CALPROFEN ® Ibuprofen Suspension contains ibuprofen, can be used in infants from 3 months old (weighing over 5Kg). For pain and fever. CALCOUGH ® Infant Syrup contains glycerol, can be used in infants from 3 months old. For dry cough. CALCOUGH ® Children's Syrup, can be used in children over one year old. For cough.CALGEL ® Teething Gel contains an anaesthetic and antiseptic, can be used in infants from 5 months. For short- term use of no more than 7 days, where non-medicinal methods have not provided relief. Always read the label. Prescriptions for ADHD medication have doubled in the past decade, and prescriptions of adult sleep medication given to children have increased tenfold over the same period. But because Calpol is such a ubiquitous part of everyday parenting, every anxiety over children’s medicines seems to be projected on to Calpol. But it was the GP’s offhand remark about Calpol as the “heroin of childhood” that caused the greatest flurry in the British tabloids. In 2018, a BBC series called The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs looked into whether we are overmedicating our children. The presenter, Dr Chris Van Tulleken, took his baby daughter to be vaccinated and then interviewed his family GP. “We have children now who are almost addicted to paracetamol, to Calpol. I don’t think they are addicted to the drug itself, but they are addicted to the process,” the GP said. “Some people describe it as the heroin of childhood.”However, you can give them one at a time – in other words, alternately – if you've already given a dose of one of them and your child is still distressed before the next dose of that same medicine is due. As part of our latest baby survey, we quizzed parents on which brand of infant pain relief they'd bought for their child or children in the past year. The medicine of British childhood is actually produced in a vast factory in a suburb of Orléans. Calpol is now owned by an American company, Johnson & Johnson, who have outsourced manufacturing to a French company called Famar. In their marketing, Johnson & Johnson like to remind us of how Calpol has been a go-to solution for generations of British parents, but the company only acquired the brand in 2006, and don’t have much information about its history. They have never given an interview about Calpol before: pharmaceutical companies don’t really do press junkets. An additive used in food products, drugs and cosmetics. Some reports have associated these ingredients with skin irritation.

Dr Andrew Green, a GP in Yorkshire and the British Medical Association’s GP committee clinical and prescribing lead, took a dimmer view of our collective loyalty to the Calpol brand: “In our society we have the idea that expensive things are best,” he told me after my trip to Maidenhead. “Buying the expensive one that’s the familiar one with the nice bottle and the advertising means parents are doing the best for their child.” The nurses who run immunisation clinics routinely tell parents to give their babies paracetamol to avoid adverse reactions, particularly after the meningitis B vaccination, which has a more powerful inflammatory response, was recommended for all infants in 2015. When my baby was immunised last year, the nurse explicitly told me to “go and buy some Calpol” to give her afterwards. This means many first-time parents’ first encounter with children’s medicine is a healthcare professional telling them to use it before their child is ill, setting up a relationship whereby we give it before we’re sure it’s needed.Do not give your child more than 4 doses of paracetamol in 24 hours. You can give it every 4 to 6 hours. Follow the instructions on the leaflet that comes with the medicine.