Unintentional poisonings each year due to medications, household cleaning products, and other household items, are a leading cause of preventable injury and death in Canada.

The week of March 19th to 25th, 2023, is National Poison Prevention Week. It's an opportunity to take notice of the actions that can be taken to protect adults and children from all kinds of unintentional poisonings.

The Saskatchewan Prevention Institute is working to raise awareness of childhood poisoning risks this week. Robyn Stewart, Child Injury Prevention Program Coordinator at the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute, said that her role focuses on children and educating people on preventing childhood poisonings. 

"Organizations across Canada choose individual focuses, and this year many of them are focusing on medications that work for pain relief because they are a leading cause of poisoning."

According to the Pan-Canadian Poison Centre's annual report from 2020, Stewart explained, "We know that each year more than one-third of the calls that Poison Centres receive, involves a child aged five and under. We know that medications for pain relief are the leading cause of childhood poisoning, followed closely by household cleaning products. "

Depending on the age of the child, we know that children often learn by crawling around their environment, Stewart explained, "Putting things in their mouth to taste them and to see what they feel like."

"We know that they're really vulnerable and that they don't know that something might hurt them when they eat it, whether that be something like one of those bright, colorful laundry detergent pods; they look like candy. So they might put that into their mouth, and that can cause them significant harm."

A majority of calls to poison centres involve a person calling from their home, and Stewart said there's a number of things we can do in our homes to keep children safe from poisoning, one of which is to safely store potential poisons. 

"Any of those cleaners, those medications, cannabis products, they all need to be kept up and out of reach of children in a locked cupboard. Keeping those products in their original child resistant packaging is really important as well. Making sure that we're following the instructions when we're giving children medication, and making sure that we're communicating with other caregivers as well, so that we can avoid unintentional double dosing with children."

If anyone suspects that poisoning has happened in their household, they should call their local poison centre.

Health Canada has just launched a national, toll-free number: 1-844 POISON-X or 1-844-764-7669. "That works across Canada and redirects people to their local poison centre, regardless of where they're calling from," Stewart shared.

Stewart added that when someone calls the poison centre, they're connected with someone who specializes in poisoning information. "They'll be able to help the person understand if they need to head to the hospital, if they need to follow up with the doctor, or maybe there's measures that they can take at home, which is often the case, so that way they can avoid an unnecessary trip to the hospital or the medical clinic."