Dealing with time zone changes and jet lag can eat into the time we have to enjoy our vacations, or make adjusting to life at home even harder. It may be even harder for kids—and when kids don’t sleep well, parents don’t sleep well either.
Around one in 4 children Already have an issue falling asleep or going back to sleep after waking up throughout the night. This could also be worse with international travel.
To help children with general sleep problems, Some parents began giving their children lollipops or jelly candies containing melatonin. Some parents also have turned to melatonin to help your child go to sleep in a brand new time zone or when returning home.
Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone secreted in our brains. Its the foremost objective is to maintain our sleep-wake cycle by making us sleepy at night. But does it work to combat jet lag in children? And is it secure?
Adults have been using melatonin for a very long time.
Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland in response to darkness.
Melatonin triggers numerous physiological processes that help promote drowsiness and sleep at the top of the day, so it might be really effective at helping adults go to sleep.
The use of melatonin in adults as a sleep aid has greater than 3 times in the previous couple of years. And adults have been using melatonin for a very long time to cure jet lag.
Who can access it in Australia?
IN AustraliaMelatonin is assessed as a pharmaceutical product. This signifies that it might only be purchased with a prescription and under the supervision of a health care provider.
The Australian regulatory authority, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, he advises can only be prescribed to children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or Smith–Magenis syndrome (a genetic developmental disorder that affects multiple parts of the body). This is because there’s evidence that melatonin can alleviate symptoms of insomnia (difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep) in children with these conditions.
Melatonin is just not beneficial to be used in children who have not been diagnosed with these conditions.
We do not know if it’s secure and effective for other children and babies.
This latest expert advice The Melatonin Task Force of the International Children’s Sleep Association, of which I am a member, recommends that melatonin supplements mustn’t be utilized in children under two years of age and may only be utilized in children with the diagnoses listed above until further data turn out to be available.
This is because we have no idea the consequences of melatonin on normally developing children and there are not any data for infants and young children. the information we have occurs only in neuroatypical children.
From a scientific viewpoint, we cannot extrapolate the evidence regarding children with neurodevelopmental disorders to the broader population of youngsters due to the physiological and psychological differences between the 2 populations.
We don’t have data to help us understand whether taking melatonin to aid sleep during jet lag is secure and effective.
So how do parents understand this?
Some parents access melatonin online, in foreign markets reminiscent of the United States.
In the US, melatonin is just not classified as a pharmaceutical product but as weight-reduction plan complementThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate dietary supplements. in the identical way as pharmaceutical products.
This makes melatonin available within the U.S. over-the-counter and online, without the necessity for medical supervision, for people of all ages.
You do not know what you are getting
Drug regulatory agencies don’t rigorously monitor the protection and effectiveness of products available on the Internet, so we cannot make certain whether melatonin gummies imported from overseas are secure and effective.
The content can also be very diverse, as you possibly can see in studies analyzing the content of commercially available brands of melatonin supplements. Melatonin levels ranged from very minimal to greater than 4 times the labeled amount.
Some products even contained serotonin. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that has a fancy relationship with melatonin. he was involved within the presentation of aggression and hyperactivity, and is usually utilized in medications for depression and anxiety under strict medical supervision. Unknown serotonin intake can be a cause for concern.
Summary
Although melatonin appears to be an efficient treatment for adults and kids with neurodevelopmental disorders, evidence for its use in typically developing children could be very limited or nonexistent.
We do not know if it’s secure or effective for normally developing infants, toddlers, or older children, and using products available online makes it even riskier.
Until we get the evidence, it’s safest to depend on behavioral sleep recommendationsThis includes ensuring that the kid’s sleep and wake times are consistent and being attentive to exposure to lightAvoiding excessive screen use within the evening or before bed and increasing light exposure within the morning will maximize melatonin secretion at the suitable times in your day-night cycle.
Providing young children with access to natural light of their holiday destination is a very good way to help them adapt to a brand new time zone.
