The frequency of children poisoned after ingesting large amounts of the over-the-counter sleep aid melatonin jumped 530% from 2012 to 2021, according to information released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NBC News reports.
Melatonin sales have jumped 150% in the last five years, a sign of increasing mental stress manifesting in insomnia and sleep problems. Small doses of melatonin reportedly help people get and stay asleep, although medical evidence on that claim is sketchy.
In the ten years starting in 2012, more than 260,000 cases of melatonin poisoning in children have been reported. More than 4,000 were hospitalized, with five put on ventilators and two–aged three months and thirteen months–dying.
The poisonings have typically occurred when the children or their parents increased dosages of an over-the-counter medication when the children could not sleep. With younger children, many of the cases stem from unsupervised children finding their parent’s staff and swallowing the pills or eating gummy candy spiked with melatonin. One of the fatalities is thought to have been done maliciously when an adult gave an infant the supplement to quiet them.
Excess dosage can lead to vomiting, diarrhea and nausea. In extreme cases, it can lead to breathing difficulties and coma.