Melatonin overdose fears with urgent warning sleep aid is POISONING kids after 52,000 calls over concerning consumption

AN URGENT warning has been issued after a troubling spike in the number of poisonings in children involving melatonin.

There was a big jump in poisonings involving the sleep aid during the pandemic and last year, US poison control centers received more than 52,000 calls.

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It marked a six-fold increase in the number of calls about children consuming a concerning amount of the dietary supplement in the last decade.

The substance is a popular over-the-counter sleeping aid that helps control the body’s sleep cycle.

While many parents may not think melatonin is a harmful substance, experts still say that it should be out of a child’s reach, WBAL TV reported.

“It’s really a medication that has the potential to cause harm, and should be put way in the medicine cabinet,”  Dr. Karima Lelak, an emergency physician at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, told WBAL TV.

While people can ingest large amounts of melatonin without significant harm, experts still warn that there isn’t an antidote.

Signs of an overdose can include slowed breathing and vomiting. If this or other worrisome signs happen, parents should take their kids to the hospital.

Currently, when children do ingest too much melatonin, parents are advised to monitor them at home.

Melatonin sales have increased 150 percent from 2016 to 2020.

The substance isn’t regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration so the department doesn’t have a record of what ingredients are used or the accuracy of dosage claims, WBAL TV reported.

Over the 10-year research period, “more than 4,000 kids were hospitalized, five needed to be put on machines to help them breathe, and two — both younger than 2 — died,” WBAL TV reported.

Other research shows that the label may misrepresent what’s inside the bottle.

That data also shows that other countries have banned the sale of over-the-counter melatonin, WBAL TV reported.

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From 2012 to 2021, there were more than 260,000 calls about kids who took too much melatonin.

In 2012, melatonin calls only represented 0.6 percent of all poison control calls. In 2021, they represented 5 percent of all calls.