Dosing Considerations for Non-Prescription Drugs in Infants and Children

Abstract

Dosing of non-prescription drugs in children has been traditionally based on age or weight based ratio reduction of the adult dose. In most cases, pharmaceutical manufacturers of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs have not undertaken pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic studies in young children. As a result there is very little direct information regarding disposition and response to non-prescription drugs in infants and young children. An effort has been made in this paper to estimate the optimal dose of various non-prescription drugs for children under the age of 2, based on physiological maturation factors in the young child and the known disposition characteristics of the drugs in adults and older children.