Wow. As a mother who has given her son Prevacid, this doesn't make me feel good. But it DOES confirm wanting to find a more natural way of alleviating his acid reflux without drugs.
According to the NY Times:
But a new study has found that patients who take these so-called proton pump inhibitors are at higher risk for pneumonia than those who do not.
Why might this happen? This is alarming to me because when I picked up the Prevacid from the pharmacy, the side effects listed for Prevacid were NONE.
Dr. Herzig said that proton pump inhibitors, which suppress acid in the stomach, might promote the growth of different types of bacteria in the upper gastrointestinal and respiratory tract, and that those bacteria might be the culprits in the pneumonias. Another explanation, she suggested, may be that acid stimulates coughing, and coughing less may promote pneumonia.
All in all, I hope parents (along with the help of their pediatrician) look into alternate treatments of acid reflux in babies. While a prescription seems like it would be an easy fix, as you can see from the article in the NY Times, sometimes they just don't have all the data they need to make the conclusion that the benefits outweighs the risks.
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