Welcome back to the Blueberry Med Minute! Today Dr. Lyndsey Garbi is sharing some practical advice about how you can follow a prescription for antibiotics. If you have more questions for Dr. Garbi or the rest of the team, you can join Blueberry to get online pediatric care 24/7.

Transcript:If you've been prescribed an antibiotic for your child it's very important that you follow the directions given on the bottle. There are two things especially important to note:The amount prescribed is weight-based. So each child obviously weighs different amounts, and it's done this way for children to ensure that they're getting the right amount in their bloodstream in order to get rid of the bacteria causing the infection. We also weight-base it to ensure they're not getting too much and it becomes a dangerous level.You have to give it exactly the amount of times per day prescribed, and for the full length of time prescribed. This is because we need to make sure that antibiotic is reaching a therapeutic level in the blood enough to get rid of the bacteria.And you must finish the full course prescribed on the bottle as well so if you have 10 days worth,  you're told to give it for 10 days, you must do that, even if your child's feeling better after two days, five days doesn't matter- full 10-day course. Because if you don't do that you're not fully getting rid of that bacteria causing the infection and it can then become resistant in the future.More reading about antibiotics:Side effects of antibioticsCommon questions about antibiotics