Drugs are poisons and they have side effects, while they carry out all the intended effects. So, ordinarily, mothers shouldn’t give drugs for teething. However, if the symptoms become worrisome, they may just give over-the-counter paracetamol and prescribed paediatric doses. We have once managed a six-month-old child whose mother gave a very high dose of paracetamol just to relieve the pain but ended up causing liver failure in a child. Paracetamol may be a common drug but it could damage the liver. When a mother overzealously administers drugs on a child, they may have other effects on the child.

What young mothers can do when their babies are teething and there are obvious symptoms is to visit a hospital so that a doctor can examine the child and rule out other problems, including malaria, pneumonia and ear infections which can make a child to have fever. Teething coincides with the time the mother’s protective antibodies begin to wane. That is why babies at that age begin to have malaria attacks and other infections because the maternal anti-bodies have dropped.