So, what's the bad news? Well, it turns out the tablets are slightly controversial. The tablets contain Belladonna, which stems from a toxic plant and has several different medical uses including sedation. They also contain Coffea Cruda so of course I worried about caffeine intake. When I was exploring the tablets for my son a year ago I called Hyland's regarding my concern. The Customer Service Rep explained to me that since the tablets are made using a homeopathic process, extremely small dosages are used resulting in an effective product that is not harmful. She also went on to tell me that their product has been in use for decades with no problems. I asked her why caffeine (Coffea Cruda) would be on the ingredient list. I mean, why would you want to give a baby who can't sleep caffeine? She explained to me that often in homeopathic treatments, since the dosage is so small, you actually get the opposite effect as if the dosage were large.
Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia's definition of Homeopathy, which explains it much better than I can.
According to homeopaths, serial dilution, with shaking between each dilution, removes the toxic effects of the remedy while the qualities of the substance are retained by the diluent(water, sugar, or alcohol). The end product is often so diluted that it is indistinguishable from pure water, sugar or alcohol.
While I'm no expert on homeopathy, that explanation helped me to feel comfortable using the tablets, especially given Hyland's great track record for them. But what I didn't know before giving the tablets to our baby girl, and only learned upon preparing this post, is that there is a recent uproar on the internet related to a mother claiming belladonna poisoning from these tablets. Hyland's response can be found on their website.
Now, I'm not sure what to think. And to make matters worse, here is more bad news. That tooth that I so clearly felt the tip of on baby girl's gums the other day is now just beneath the surface again. How unfair is that? I had heard that was possible but never noticed it with our son. Poor girl. Maybe had my husband known this he would have understood why I was so incredibly upset with him after he inadvertently woke her this afternoon (it took me a long time to get her down!).
Since I posted 2 bits of bad news it's only fair to leave on a happy note: I got several digital projects done this weekend which I'll share with you soon!
Hope your Memorial Day weekend was nice. Aside from the teething we had a great weekend with lots of family time.
Tricia
1 comment:
We use Hylands too - we've had great luck with both Pete and David. I'd read about the problematic ingredients, but I also heard they were small amounts. They have never caused my children any sleeplessness, that's for sure. Poor Syd and Leah with their teething woes!!!
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