The numbers are quite scary; poison control centre reported that each year, nearly 1 million children younger than 5 exposed to toxic drugs. With some common-sense precautions, you can keep your child safe from accidental poisoning and from becoming a statistic.

If you have children in your home or have young children often visit your home, make sure that every drug you have is in child resistant packaging. Many times the grandparents will request a non-child-resistant packaging for their drugs because they have trouble opening the containers.

If this happens to you, make sure that all your medications stored where children can not see or reach them later. Often you will end up with a drug that expires before you have a need to use it. These medications should not be simply thrown in the bathroom trash.

These drugs may have expired, but they still pose a poisoning hazard to your child. To keep your child safe from poisoning, flush expired drugs down the toilet or pour liquids into the sewer. Rinse the container and then throw it away.

NEVER mention any drug as 'candy'. Children must not be misled by having their medications called candy. Pharmaceutical companies may make children's medicines taste 'good' to make it easier to literally, swallow, but it doesn't make it candy. In referring to as candy, you are giving your child the message that it's OK to drink it or eat it whenever they can get to it.