Grandma’s usually a safe space for grandkids — but a hidden danger lurking in her purse could send them to the hospital.
“Granny’s purse syndrome” is responsible for up to a fifth of accidental child poisonings, and one pediatric emergency medicine doctor is warning people how to keep their children safe this holiday season and year-round.
And to be clear, grandpa needs to take note, too.
Dr. Meghan Martin (@Beachgem10) shared her timely warning on TikTok, clueing parents and grandparents in to an often-overlooked risk to little ones.
“If you are spending time with your family for the holidays, it’s important to know about something called ‘granny syndrome’ or ‘granny’s purse syndrome,’” she said.
“This is when young kids get into their grandparents’ medications that are not secured properly — for many reasons. One of them is that grandparents are not used to having kids around. Often their medications are on low shelves or in their purses or in medication containers that are not child resistant.”
If these seems like a rare problem, think again: 10% to 20% of accidental intoxication in kids is caused by their grandparents’ medications, according to a 2006 study published in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine.
The researchers, operating at Long Island Regional Poison and Drug Information Center, analyzed phone calls to poison control centers for kids age 6 and under. They found that many of the incidents involved containers that weren’t child resistant and had been placed in pocketbooks or on tables, countertops and low shelves.
The average age of the poisoned child was a year and a half, and they mostly got into pain relievers, heart medications and psychotropic drugs.
“Some of these medications can be really dangerous,” said Martin. “They can be pain pills, antidepressants, heart medications, blood pressure medications or diabetes medications.”
While grandma and grandpa may pop two pills and it’s no problem, kids’ bodies are significantly smaller, so that dosage has a much bigger impact — and one pill can be toxic.
In one case study cited by the Winthrop University Hospital researchers, granny had come over to bake cookies with her 3-year-old grandson and left her purse on the sofa “for just a moment.”
While her head was turned, he got into the bag and began playing with her pills — telling her, “M&Ms, nana,” when she returned.
She was taking an ACE inhibitor (which treats high blood pressure and heart failure), a diuretic, a sulfonamide (and antibiotics) and a beta-blocker, and he was given activated charcoal at the hospital to counteract potential poisoning because they didn’t know how many he’d swallowed.
On TikTok, Martin is warning people to make sure medications are locked up if they’re visiting family — and if family is visiting them, not to keep medications in their purses or suitcases.
She also recommends that adults not take medications in front of kids because they’ll want to mimic what grown-ups do, and cheekily referring to drugs as “candy” is even more likely to encourage those kiddos to go digging for it.
