{"id":945,"date":"2010-11-29T14:17:41","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T22:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/?p=945"},"modified":"2010-11-29T14:17:41","modified_gmt":"2010-11-29T22:17:41","slug":"the-tablet-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/29\/the-tablet-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tablet Controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 468px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Santa\" src=\"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/josanta.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"458\" height=\"419\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">She asked him to bring her a cookie for Christmas. I hope he knows it needs to be lactose free.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>On October 23<sup>rd<\/sup>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fda.gov\/ForConsumers\/ConsumerUpdates\/ucm230762.htm\" target=\"_blank\">FDA issued a warning<\/a> to stop using Hyland\u2019s Teething Tablets. The tablets contain belladonna which, when dissolved in a baby\u2019s mouth, is thought to ease teething pain.<\/p>\n<p>The FDA cited these problems with the tablets in their report:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>They\u2019ve received reports of belladonna toxicity \u2013 symptoms include: seizures, difficulty breathing, lethargy, sleepiness, weakness, skin flushing, constipation, agitation.<\/li>\n<li>They\u2019ve identified manufacturing inconsistencies that result in varying degrees of the substance in the tablets.<\/li>\n<li>They point out that the tablets have not been proven to work.<\/li>\n<li>They\u2019ve received reports of babies consuming too many tablets because there is no child proof cap.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org\/if-it-were-my-child-no-teething-tablets\/\" target=\"_blank\">Seattle Mama Doc<\/a> recommends not using any tablets or gels of any kind because they\u2019re not proven to work.\u00a0 She recommends baby Tylenol (if anything) for teething pain, but I\u2019m not sure that is the right solution either after their <a href=\"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/07\/murky-at-best\/\" target=\"_blank\">recent recall debacle<\/a>. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll ever look at Johnson &amp; Johnson the same.<\/p>\n<p>On the other side of the debate is <a href=\"http:\/\/gaia-health.com\/articles301\/000321-fda-bans-hylands-homeopathic-teething-product.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Gaia Health<\/a> who claims that the amount of belladonna is so low that a baby would have to consume thousands of the tablets to show any signs of toxicity and that the FDA\u2019s actions are the result of pressure by big pharmaceuticals. Now, I\u2019m all for a good conspiracy theory, especially one that involves the FDA, but the question I just can\u2019t answer is this: why would big pharma want Hyland\u2019s to be off the market? Are they competing with Hylands or is it just because Hylands is unregulated? Also, if it takes thousands of tablets to show signs of toxicity, is there really enough belladonna in each table to relieve pain?<\/p>\n<p>We used the tablets when Josie was teething with mixed results. Sometimes it seemed like it helped, sometimes not. Josie was kind of a fussy baby and I think many times we incorrectly assumed her fussiness was a result of teething pain. Now we know that was likely lactose intolerance. Hello, bad mommy feeding her <em>cow\u2019s milk formula!<\/em> Sheesh, the guilt\u2026 Anyhoo, it\u2019s a tough call but I think the risks outweigh the benefits.<\/p>\n<p>Have you used them? Did they work? What do you think of all this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On October 23rd, the FDA issued a warning to stop using Hyland\u2019s Teething Tablets. The tablets contain belladonna which, when dissolved in a baby\u2019s mouth, is thought to ease teething pain. The FDA cited these problems with the tablets in their report: They\u2019ve received reports of belladonna toxicity \u2013 symptoms include: seizures, difficulty breathing, lethargy, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mom","category-hmn-reports","category-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}