Image Credit: Screenshot/WPVI-TV

Jeanie Ward placed her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter on the constipation relief medicine MiraLAX at the advice of a doctor, reports Philadelphia's WPVI 6 ABC Action News. Within ten days, Nicole Ward's personality and demeanor dramatically changed.

The child experienced the following:

“Near psychiatric events with paranoia, mood swings, aggression, rage,” Jeanie told 6 ABC.

Ward claimed she was “horrified” to see her daughter's behavior change so rapidly. By the second grade, Nicole was still different. The young girl told WPVI:

“I was a very, very happy child. When I was two, I was running around playing. In second grade I started hating everybody. I wanted to kill everybody. I'm mad that this happened to me,” she said.

Jeanie is just one of 4,700 concerned parents of the Facebook group “Parents Against Miralax” that have banded together to stop the recommendation of MiraLAX — specifically the ingredient polyethylene glycol (PEG 3350) — to young children.

Local ABC affiliate WPVI reports that MiraLAX is commonly prescribed to infants and toddlers despite it's label not recommending the product for use by anyone under 17.

Some parents who have given their children MiraLAX claim the ingredient PEG 3350 is responsible for major neuro-psychiatric problems in their children.

A study is currently underway at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) received over 160 reports of adverse side effects in children following the use of MiraLAX.

WPVI-TV reports that the FDA revealed tests conducted by the agency found MiraLAX to contain small amounts of ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol — two chemicals derived from PEG 3350.

They are the same toxic chemicals found in antifreeze.

Jeanie and several other parents say they have witnessed firsthand the dramatic effects of MiraLAX when it was prescribed to their children, sometimes “like water”:

The Philly Voice reports that Bayer, the manufacturer of MiraLAX, has confirmed that PEG 3350 is safe for long- and short-term use in pediatric patients, while acknowledging that the product is not labeled for use in the pediatric population.

Pop Sugar writes that the study on the effect of PEG 3350 in children is still ongoing and the results will be disclosed to the FDA once they are released.