Number of children on sleeping medications growing rapidly in the U.S.

• More teenagers than ever before are turning to pills to get to sleep.
• However, doctors caution that sleep medications should be used as a last resort.
• Not enough sleep Katy Mullican, 17, was just three years old when she first started having trouble sleeping.
• "I just remember wanting to go to sleep, and my dad would come and scratch my back and that would help me," says Mullican.
• When she started school, she was diagnosed with ADHD, otherwise known as attention hyperactivity disorder.
• Since the age of six, Katy has been on a combination of ADHD drugs and sleeping pills, but she still has trouble sleeping.
• "A lot of people think oh well, you just need to get to bed earlier, but really when your mind is going so fast at night, you can't do anything about it," explains Mullican.
• Today in the United States, almost one in 300 children aged 10-years-old to 19-years-old take prescription sleeping medications.
• Dr. Judith Owens runs the sleep clinic in Providence, Rhode Island.
• She says sleeping pills should be a last resort, but sometimes it's worth it.
• "There is a lot of data to support that sleep problems in children, including not getting enough sleep, can cause memory and learning and behavioral problems.
• You have to look at the consequences of the disorder itself, as well as the medications," explains Dr. Judith Owens of the Hasbro Children's Hospital.
• Uncertain consequences The Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved or tested sleeping pills for children, so how effective and safe they are, is uncertain.
• Katy now uses Ambien and sometimes gets up to six hours a night, but her doctor intends to wean her off it as soon as possible.
• If it works, it would be the first time since she was a child that sleep came naturally.