Major brands today put potentially harmful ingredients into products for their littlest customers. We can’t tell you why, but we can tell you what to avoid and why: benzocaine, lidocaine, and belladonna. And remember, there are safe, non-toxic ways to treat teething pain. 

Benzocaine

Benzocaine is a local anesthetic in major over-the-counter (OTC) brand oral care products, including teething remedies. 

The intake of benzocaine through any of these products can lead to a serious condition called methemoglobinemia in people of any age. This condition can be harmful and sometimes fatal.

In individuals experiencing methemoglobinemia, the red blood cells reduce their abilities to carry oxygen through the blood. Symptoms can show up immediately or potentially hours after intake of benzocaine. Symptoms can include:

• Rapid heart rate
• Shortness of breath
• Pale or blue colored skin

Benzocaine products are considered safer for children older than 2 years of age, but this condition can appear even in adults.

When giving your baby any medicine, the delivery system is critical. If your baby spits out the medicine, how will you know how much of  the active ingredient they have ingested in order to determine if it is safe to try again?

The method of delivery of these products – oils, gels, etc. – make it difficult, if not impossible, to know how much your child has ingested.

Lidocaine

Lidocaine is typically available in prescription local anesthetics. The FDA does not recommend any products with lidocaine for children, and now requires a Boxed Warning – the FDA’s strongest warning  – to highlight the dangers in products with a 2% solution of lidocaine.

When too much of the solution is given to children –  whether it be the difficulty of exact dosing or the spitting out of the first attempt – potential side effects can include seizures, brain injury, and heart problem. 

As reported by the FDA, “cases of  overdose due to wrong dosing or accidental ingestion have resulted in infants or children being hospitalized or dying”.

Belladonna

Belladonna is a popular ingredient in homeopathic teething remedies, but even this homeopathic ingredient can pose a harmful risk to our children. 

The FDA’s research found that teething tablets containing Belladonna pose an unnecessary risk, and recommend disposing of any such products. The belladonna alkaloids content was inconsistent and not uniform among the tablets. 

The concern is largely around products made from an unregulated form of belladonna, and the inconsistency of the amount of the active ingredient across products. 

Belladonna is a toxic plant that can cause heart products and drowsiness. One of the compounds in the drug works like atropine, which is actually one of the alkaloids in belladonna. Atropine is a substance used by eye doctors as an eye muscle relaxer. Dr. Eric Higginbotham of  Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas said,

”Women would take it and experience hallucinations and other unpredictable effects… You don’t know how much your kid is getting. Without the quality control of the FDA’s oversight, you could get a high dose of belladonna extract in these tablets that could be lethal in a little kid.”

So what now?

First, we gather knowledge from experts. As parents, we can simply avoid products that contain these potentially harmful ingredients. There are a number of non-medical and all-natural teething remedies that are safe and helpful. 

One of the reasons that we founded the Springlings brand was because of the inaccurate dosage in medicines for children. How can we be sure that we have given our babies only exactly the safe amount of the medicines that we use to relieve their pain? The answer is not through gels or tablets that can be partially ingested or spit out.