Among all the visits children make to health care providers, 20 percent result in a prescription for antibiotics. That’s about 50 million prescriptions a year, Harvard Faculty Editor Claire McCarthy, M.D., wrote this week in a piece for Harvard Health Publications.

Yet 10 million of those prescriptions are for respiratory illnesses that antibiotics aren’t likely to help.

“Basically, one in five of those 50 million prescriptions shouldn’t have been written in the first place,” said McCarthy.

In some cases, parents insist on the prescriptions — they think they should be getting something from doctors when their child is sick, according to Dr. Meghan May, an associate professor of microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of New England College of Medicine.

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Still, patients were overall better informed about when antibiotics were needed and when they were not, according to a recent study in the journal Pediatric; that improvement was not uniform across different communities, May told LifeZette.

Related: Those Rotten ‘Routine Antibiotics’

“There are a few reasons this is harmful. Antibiotics are not without side effects,” said May. “Some of these can be quite bothersome — diarrhea/upset stomach, rashes and other allergic reactions, and potential for disruption of the normal microbiome. While there are many reasons antibiotic resistance has become a health crisis, one of them is certainly the tendency [among doctors] to prescribe them when they are not, strictly speaking, necessary.”

“All children are going to respond worse to antibiotic treatment — even if they’ve never had a course of antibiotics in their life. The bacteria infecting them are already resistant,” said one infectious disease expert.

The best way to think of antibiotics, she said, is as poisons for bacteria: Most of the bacteria die, but those that survive are less responsive to the poison. Those are the ones that repopulate. The next time the antibiotic is used, it is less effective because its “ancestors” were most resistant to being poisoned.

“When these bacteria begin circulating in schools and day cares, all children are going to respond worse to antibiotic treatment — even if they’ve never had a course of antibiotics in their life. The bacteria infecting them are already resistant,” said May.

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Harvard offers a helpful quiz for those parents who still aren’t sure when antibiotics might help, compared to when the medications might create bigger problems. Among the situations posed that parents might easily relate to: “Any time the doctor says your child has an ear infection, you should leave the office with a prescription for antibiotics.” True or false?

For the most part, false. Most ear infections get better without antibiotics — only in certain cases will the antibiotics potentially be helpful.

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If we want antibiotics to work at all in the future, we have to better trust our instincts — and our doctors, according to May and McCarthy.

“Clinicians are in the business of taking care of the sick. They do not benefit from ‘denying’ an antibiotic to a child who truly needs one,” said May. “Trust your clinician. If you do not, try to find another clinician (doctor, nurse practitioner, or physician’s assistant) whose opinion you do trust. If this person suspects your child needs an antibiotic, your child does. Do not worry about resistance; worry about your child. If the doctor indicates your child doesn’t need antibiotics, trust their judgment.”