Before You Start
- Use a box with a lid that closes firmly, clearly marked, that a child cannot open easily. A plastic food box with a clip lid works as well as a bought kit.
- Keep medicines and the kit apart, or lock the medicines. The dressings need to be quick to reach; the medicines need to be out of a child's reach.
- Everyone who looks after your child needs to know where it is: both parents, grandparents, nannies, drivers and older children.
- Learn to use what is in it. Read our first aid guide and, better still, take a hands-on course.
The Home Kit
For Wounds and Bleeding
For Burns
Tools
For Fever and Illness
Written Information
In an emergency nobody remembers numbers. Write these on a card, put it in a plastic sleeve in the kit, and keep a photo of it on every carer's phone.
Contacts
For Each Child
Extras for the Car
A car kit has the same dressings and tools as the home kit, plus a few things for the road. Keep medicines out of the car: heat in a parked car in Abuja can spoil them within days.
A School-Bag Kit for Children with a Long-Term Condition
Children with asthma, severe allergies or sickle cell disease need to carry their medicines and plans wherever they go: school, church or mosque, parties, holidays with relatives. Tell the school in writing, show the teacher how to use the medicines, and agree who holds them. Our school checklist covers everything else to agree with the school.
Asthma
Severe Allergy (Anaphylaxis)
Sickle Cell Disease
For Every Child with a Condition
What Not to Keep
Clear these out each time you stock the kit. Each one can harm a child.
- Expired medicines. They may not work, and some change as they age. Check the dates each time you check the kit.
- Unlabelled tablets and syrups, or medicines moved into another container. Nobody can be sure what they are, or how strong, in an emergency.
- Leftover antibiotics and antimalarials, or medicine prescribed for someone else. Give them only after a test and a prescription for this illness. Take unused ones back to a pharmacy.
- Mixed herbal preparations (agbo and others), "native" eye drops and unlabelled powders. Their strength and contents are unknown; some contain alcohol, heavy metals or substances that damage the liver and kidneys, especially in babies.
- Aspirin for children. Never give aspirin to anyone under 16 unless a specialist prescribes it.
- Cough and cold mixtures containing codeine, or sedating syrups for babies. They can slow a child's breathing dangerously.
- Mercury thermometers. Replace them with a digital one.
- Loose button batteries. Keep spares sealed in their packet, locked away.
Where to Keep It and When to Check It
- Cool, dry and out of the sun. Heat and damp in kitchens and bathrooms spoil medicines and dressings. A high shelf in a bedroom cupboard works well.
- Up high, and locked if it holds medicines. Children can climb. Child-resistant caps slow a child down but do not stop them.
- In the same place every time. Put it back after every use, and restock what you used that week.
- Check it every 3 months — at the start of each school term is easy to remember. Replace used and expired items, check the thermometer and torch batteries, and update the written card (especially your child's weight and medicines).
- Visitors' bags count too. Grandparents' and guests' handbags often hold tablets. Ask visitors to keep their bags up high.
Questions Parents Ask
Is a ready-made kit from a pharmacy good enough?
It is a good start. Check it against this list: most bought kits do not include a thermometer, ORS, cling film or the written information card, and some include creams or medicines you do not need. Add what is missing.
Should I keep an antiseptic cream for cuts?
Most small cuts and grazes heal well if they are washed under clean running water and covered. Antiseptic creams are not needed for most wounds and some cause skin reactions. An antiseptic solution such as povidone-iodine is useful for animal bites after thorough washing.
Can I make ORS at home if I run out?
Sachets are safer, because homemade mixtures are easy to get wrong and too much salt or sugar can harm a child. Keep several sachets in the kit. If your child has diarrhoea and you have none, give extra breast milk or other fluids and get ORS from a pharmacy or health centre as soon as you can.
My child's adrenaline pen has expired. Can I still use it in an emergency?
If it is all you have during a severe reaction, use it and get help, because an expired pen is better than none. But replace expired pens before they run out: note the dates on your phone, and ask for a new prescription a month before.
How do I make sure the nanny or grandparents can use the kit?
Show them where it is, go through the written card together, and read the first aid guide with them. Better still, book a first aid course for the whole household.
Sources
- International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. International First Aid, Resuscitation, and Education Guidelines 2020. Geneva: IFRC; 2020.
- Zideman DA, Singletary EM, Borra V, et al. European Resuscitation Council Guidelines 2021: First aid. Resuscitation. 2021;161:270–290.
- World Health Organization and UNICEF. Clinical management of acute diarrhoea: WHO/UNICEF joint statement. 2004.
- World Health Organization. Rabies vaccines: WHO position paper. Weekly Epidemiological Record. 2018;93(16):201–220.
- National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Fever in under 5s: assessment and initial management (NG143). 2019, updated 2021.
- World Health Organization and UNICEF. World report on child injury prevention. 2008.
Written for parents and carers in NigeriaClinically reviewed by Limi Children’s Hospital cliniciansLast updated September 2026Next review due September 2027