CNN just reported that some children's cold medicines are being pulled from the shelves due to a pattern of misuse that has led to more than 50 recent deaths. Officials are reassuring parents that the drugs are actually perfectly safe when taken according to the directions, and the move is simply a precautionary step to ensure proper usage.

I say this is scary, because "proper usage" may be less obvious than it may seem. Halleigh was sick for the first time this week, and her fever was hich enough that we actually took her in to the doctor. The doctor told us that we could alternate Tylenol and Motrine every 3 hours and that we could give Halleigh a larger dosage than the typical amount listed on the packaging. She then wrote down the safe dosage she recommended and sent us home.

Armed with the written instructions, we put Halleigh on the bed and took out the dosage dropper from the Motrine box, only to realize that the doctor had given us a dosage in miligrams and the dropper was measured in mililiters.

Alright, time to knock the cobwebs out of the corner of my brain reserved for math and stoichiometry. After puzzling a little while, I found the conversion for miligrams to mililiters on the Motrine box, did a little cross multiplication, and soon had the proper dosage.

A little later, it came time for the Tylenol. So I whipped out a pen and did another conversion. But as we were about to give the medicine to our girl, Brooklynne said, "this seems like way too much." I checked my math and I had the figures right. But flags were still up in our minds, so we hesitated.

That's when it hit me that there would be a different number of grams per liter for Tylenol since Tylenol probably had a different density than Motrine. Sure enough, the Tylenol dosage I had calculated based on the Motrine conversion factor was almost twice the correct dosage prescribed by Halleigh's physician (which was already significantly higher than the amount recommended on the packaging)!

I think of myself as being relatively intelligent but I almost missed that one. And I'm sure there are other well-meaning parents out there who would not have had the education to figure this out.

It may be a hassle that common, safe drugs may not be as convenient to purchase, but I'm thankful someone is looking out for the health of our children.