Headphones or earphones instead of the lullaby, pediatricians and ENT specialists are up in the air. According to an Ipsos survey of 1,500 people reported in your newspapers this morning, one in ten children under the age of two (9%) fall asleep with audio accessories. 15% use them during long car journeys.
For Dr. Jean-Michel Klein, the president of the national union of ENT doctors, this situation is appalling. “We are going to make them deaf at 30,” he explains to Agence France presse.
The damage to the ears is all the more important as the little ones are unable to tell if the sound is too loud. To this excessive auditory stimulation is added a risk of excitation in relation to sleep.
And habits die hard. A child “fed up” with headphones will grow up keeping this reflex. 69% of teenagers fall asleep with music in their ears and 67% use it during long car journeys.
To avoid breaking our children’s ears, doctors are unanimous: no headphones or earphones before the age of 6 to 8 years. But it seems that many parents are still deaf to these common sense messages!
