Nursery World - Health & Well-Being

Paracetamol brand Calpol is enduringly popular with parents and carers, but is it used too much? By Meredith Jones Russell

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For many children, the sweet pink liquid of Calpol is a comforting and restoring solution to feeling under the weather. But is it the best response to childhood ailments?

Calpol is consistently the most popular pain relief brand for children in the UK. It makes up 70 per cent of the market, with more than three times the sales of its closest rival, Nurofen, and 50 times those of the next most popular paracetamol brand, Parapaed.

Mahendra Patel, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, explains, ‘Even today, whenever a child is unwell, parents reach out for Calpol. It is almost a natural default reaction to just wanting to do something.’

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