The incident raises serious questions about children’s safety at childcare facilities.
Recently, three daycare workers in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois were charged with multiple criminal charges after it was discovered that they had been giving the children in their care the sleep aid melatonin to get them to take naps. The kids in question were just two years old, and their parents had not given their permission for their children to be given this supplement.
The three workers, Kristen Lauletta, 32, Jessica Heyse, 19, and Ashley Helfenbein, 25, were each charged with two counts of child endangerment and two counts of battery. Police were alerted by a manager at the Kiddie Junction Daycare Center that the three had been giving the children in their care gummy bears that contained melatonin in order to get the kids to settle down and go to sleep at nap time. When the police searched the daycare, they found a bottle that had originally contained 120 gummy bears with only 4 gummy bears left. When the workers were interrogated, they admitted to giving the kids the melatonin. They did not believe that what they did was wrong because the gummy bears were available over-the-counter and melatonin is a supplement, rather than a prescription.
While these children may not have suffered an immediate injury from being given melatonin, the long-term effects of taking melatonin — a naturally occurring hormone that regulates sleep and wakefulness — in young children is unknown. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 13 million infants, toddlers and preschool age children are enrolled in daycare across the United States — the equivalent of at least 6 out of 10 children. While many daycares provide excellent care that allows parents to work, others may follow below minimum standards and actually cause harm to our kids. As experienced children’s rights attorneys, we have seen far too many cases involving physical, emotional and sexual abuse of kids in childcare settings.
Physical injuries are common in daycares, often due to unsafe equipment. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), an annual average of 31,000 children under the age of 4 are treated in emergency rooms each year for injuries that they suffered at daycares. The injuries can come from a variety of sources. For example, 24% of the childcare settings studied by the CPSC did not have safe playground surfacing, leading to injuries. 13% did not use child safety gates. 8% of the childcares observed had cribs that did not meet current CPSC safety standards, while another 5% of daycares had products that had been recalled by the CPSC. 26% of the childcares had loops on the window blind cords — a hazard that can lead to choking and hanging.
When parents drop their kids off at a daycare, they expect that they will be kept safe — not exposed to harm or dosed with medicine to make them sleep. At PLBH, we believe that children have a right to be safe at daycare and at school. If your child has suffered an injury at school, daycare or in another setting, we can help. Contact our experienced children’s rights attorneys today at (800) 435-7542 or info@plblaw.com to schedule an initial consultation and learn how we can help.