The Canadian Pediatric Society doesn’t recommend the use of melatonin in healthy children because no one has ever studied the long-term effects, according to CTV News.
Canada urgently needs guidelines for managing sleep disorders in children, say the authors of a study that found over-the-counter and prescription medications are commonly used to get kids to sleep.
A survey of nearly 350 parents who brought their children to a pediatric emergency department found that 80 per cent of kids with underlying medical conditions and 70 per cent without pre-existing conditions had trouble sleeping.
Among those kids who had repeated sleep problems, 27 per cent had been given over-the-counter medications to help them sleep. Six per cent of the children were given prescription medications.
