ORLANDO — In this video, Cora Collette Breuner, MD, MPH, FAAP, discusses her presentation at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition on the safety and efficacy of herbs and supplements taken by children and adolescents.

According to Breuner, a pediatrician and professor of pediatrics and adolescent medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington, one of the most common questions she is asked by parents and colleagues is if melatonin is safe for children.

“Honestly, I get asked about that every single day in my clinical practice and by my colleagues,” Breuner told Healio at the meeting. “Honestly, the data are not clear about melatonin, especially long term. It’s a hormone [so] we need to be careful, especially in young kids who are growing, to make sure we’re not putting something in their body that interferes with growth or puberty.”

Breuner and Lori Walsh, MD, FAAP, ABOIM, medical director of the Center for Health and Integrative Medicine at Advocate Health in Evanston, Illinois, dug into the research to provide conference attendees with an overview of the safety and efficacy of herbs and supplements.

They also provided a list of resources for clinicians who have questions about the topic. Those are listed below.

Reference:

For more information:

American Botanical Council. HerbMedPro.

ConsumerLab.com.

Council for Responsible Nutrition.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Herbs at a glance.

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. What does NCCIH do?

NatMed.

U.S Department of Agriculture. Dietary supplements.

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