New Study Shows Shocking Number of Children Accidentally Poisoned Daily

(NBC News) – Toddlers may barely be able to stand up, but they have an amazing ability to climb to new heights to reach something they see and want to grab.

Too often that something is medicine, and that can have dangerous consequences.

"Children as young as a month have ended up in an emergency department because they'd been poisoned by getting into a medicine that was left within reach of them," notes Morag Mackay of Safe Kids Worldwide.

Mackay is the author of a new report that finds the vast majority of parents say it's important to store medication up high and out of sight, but less than half do so.

"Parents, while they know their kids well, they sometimes underestimate what they can actually do," she explains.

"We've had children get into medicines because they were given the bottle half-full of tablets to use as a rattle, " explains Dr. Rutherfoord Rose of the Virginia Poison Center.

The potential danger includes vitamins, supplements and even eye drops.

Poison control experts say laundry detergents and other cleaners are also common sources of accidental poisonings in kids.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1XyuXqM