Is it OK to give melatonin to help children sleep?
Is it OK to give melatonin to help children sleep?
A recent story about three childcare workers who present lying mummified babies to shocked and angry parents everywhere.
Staff at the Chicago Center did this without the children’s parents’ permission “before the nap.”
- A 47-year-old boy took off his mother’s iPhone
- Many parents wait to take their children to the first visit to the dentist
Although this story, which resulted in criminal charges, surprised many and led some parents to wonder: Is it okay to give babies melatonin?
Before we move on, let’s start with some basics.
Melatonin is the sleep hormone that is naturally produced by the brain. During the day, light inhibits its production.
Melatonin production increases when it gets dark.
When this happens, it can help people fall asleep, nod, and fall asleep more easily. (It can also help reset the body’s internal clock when a plane is delayed.)
While melatonin is a hormone that the body naturally produces, you can also buy it as a drug.
In some countries, you can buy it without a prescription, but this is not the case in the world where it is only made with a prescription.
It’s for good reason, says Dr. David Kunifton, a sleep therapist and co-founder of the Sleep Hub.
“People should not self-medicate or give melatonin to their children,” he says.
Since the body naturally produces melatonin, many consider the drug to be harmless.
But Dr. Cunnington cautions that the safety or long-term effects of giving children melatonin are unknown, adding that in animal experiments, it appears to have effects on pubertal development.
Plus, he says, “melatonin isn’t a great ‘sedative’ as needed.
Instead, he says, it’s best used as a mild mild sedative prescribed for certain conditions such as anxiety or autism.
That’s why they say it can play a role in an overall sleep management strategy, but only under your doctor’s supervision.
While it is not recommended to use melatonin if your child cannot sleep, there are ways in which you can naturally affect the levels of this hormone in your child.
First, it is important that children get daylight to help suppress melatonin levels.
Then, as the sun sets, it is important to avoid bright light.
One major problem is that screens emit blue light of a wavelength, which particularly affects melatonin levels. So if kids use screens before bed, that means they aren’t ready to sleep at night.
You may be familiar with this, and you may have heard the advice to stop checking your phone before bed.
However, while screens affect us all, new research shows that the problem is worse in children than in adults.
Research published in the journal Physiological Reports showed that children had lower levels of melatonin by 88 percent after exposure to bright light.
Even more interesting, the study found that the effects lasted for up to 50 minutes after exposure to light.
The lead author explained in the paper that bright light may affect young children more than adults, as they have larger pupils and their lenses are more transparent, making them more sensitive to light.
doctor. The takeaway message, Cannington says, is that once the sun goes down, you should be careful about being exposed to blue light because it can trick the brain into thinking it’s still daytime.
Yes, it can be frustrating to watch your child climb walls and use every trick in the book to avoid having to put his head on the pillow at bedtime.
But the answer, he says, is no to bullets.
Instead, he says you should give melatonin “respect and caution” against taking any other medication used for sleep, and only use it when needed and under a doctor’s supervision.