Why doctors worry about the rise in US children using melatonin to sleep
A 2023 study found that nearly one in five US children under the age of 14 regularly used medicine to help them sleep. This medication is called melatonin.
About six per cent of preschoolers aged one to four were taking the sleep medicine. Researchers are concerned about this number.
Melatonin is a hormone that controls when we sleep and wake up. Our bodies naturally make melatonin.
However, melatonin medicine is not as closely monitored as other sleep medicines. There isn't much information on how this affects children in the long run.
Dr Cora Collette Breuner is a professor of paediatrics at the University of Washington.
'It is terrifying to me that this amount of an unregulated product is being utilised,' Breuner said.
More people are using melatonin these days. Unfortunately, this has led to a big increase in the number of children with melatonin poisoning.
Signs of melatonin poisoning include an upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhoea and feeling tired all the time.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported that from 2012 to 2021, cases of children under five accidentally having too much melatonin increased by over 500 per cent.
Poison control centres recorded 260,435 of these cases. The biggest increase was during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Doctors suggest other ways to help children and adults fall asleep without using melatonin (see graphic). The American Academy of Paediatrics said that melatonin should only be used for a short time and under a doctor's supervision.
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