Before giving children and adolescents melatonin please be aware of the following view:
(copied from previous posts)
Here's Professor Kennaway's paper. He is a well respected scientist working on reproductive biology in domestic animals and has substantial experience with melatonin.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jpc.12840/full
Potential safety issues in the use of the hormone melatonin in paediatrics
- David J Kennaway1,2,*
Article first published online: 3 FEB 2015
Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland during the night in response to light/dark information received by the retina and its integration by the suprachiasmatic nucleus. When administered to selected populations of adults, in particular those displaying delayed sleep phase disorder, melatonin may advance the time of sleep onset. It is, however, being increasingly prescribed for children with sleep disorders despite the fact that (i) it is not registered for use in children anywhere in the world; (ii) it has not undergone the formal safety testing expected for a new drug, especially long-term safety in children; (iii) it is known to have profound effects on the reproductive systems of rodents, sheep and primates, as well as effects on the cardiovascular, immune and metabolic systems; and (iv) there is the potential for important interactions with drugs sometimes prescribed for children. In this review, I discuss properties of melatonin outside its ability to alter sleep timing that have been widely ignored but which raise questions about the safety of its use in infants and adolescents.
...
While it can be misleading to compare doses of drugs that have physiological outcomes in animals with those administered to humans, it is important to recognise that the doses used in the rodent and primate experiments which had physiological effects are well
below the doses currently administered to children with sleep disorders (i.e. a 3-mg melatonin dose equates with 200 μg/kg for a 15-kg child and 60 μg/kg for a 50-kg child). The role of melatonin in reproductive processes was reviewed in 1980
[15] and again in 1991
[16] by the same author. In the 1991 review, Russell Reiter wrote, ‘In particular, melatonin as a mediator of photoperiodically induced changes in pubertal development and seasonal reproduction in nonhuman mammals has been repeatedly confirmed.
Considering the pronounced effects of the pineal gland and melatonin on reproductive physiology in these nonhuman mammals, to assume they would not have some sexual effects in humans would almost seem naive.Whereas only 30 years ago the pineal was generally considered to be vestigial, it now appears it may be functionally involved with every organ system in the body.’
[16] Subsequent research supports the widespread influence of melatonin on a wide range of physiological systems.
[17]
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news76502.html
Warning on use of drug for children's sleep
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
Sleep researchers at the University of Adelaide are warning doctors and parents not to provide the drug melatonin to children to help control their sleep problems.
...
In a paper published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, Professor David Kennaway, Head of the Circadian Physiology Laboratory at the University of Adelaide's Robinson Research Institute, warns that providing melatonin supplements to children may result in serious side effects when the children are older.
...
"Melatonin is registered in Australia as a treatment for primary insomnia only for people aged 55 years and over, but it's easily prescribed as an 'off label' treatment for sleep disorders for children."
...
Professor Kennaway says there is extensive evidence from laboratory studies that melatonin causes changes in multiple physiological systems, including cardiovascular, immune and metabolic systems, as well as reproduction in animals.
...
Professor Kennaway, who has been researching melatonin for the past 40 years, says these concerns have largely been ignored throughout the world.
...
"Considering the small advances melatonin provides to the timing of sleep, and considering what we know about how melatonin works in the body, it is not worth the risk to child and adolescent safety," he says.