Q: I’ve been using a white noise machine since my son was born. It helps him sleep. Is that bad? Could it affect his hearing? A: Many households turn to white noise machines to help their children get to and stay asleep.
White noise is made up of different frequencies, creating a background sound that can muffle potential disturbances. The devices are easy to use, often in the form of a stand-alone machine or a smartphone app. The positives of this seemingly low-risk intervention are obvious: better sleep.
But just how low risk is it? To find out, we conducted a review of the available literature on white noise machines for young children. The results, recently published in the journal Sleep Medicine , showed that all tested devices generated alarmingly loud sounds. There is no uniform standard for noise exposure from consumer products like white noise machines.
For occupational noise, however, the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends limiting exposure to less than 85 decibels over eight hours and 82 decibels over 16 hours. That’s roughly equivalent to noise from a lawn mower over eight hours or standing near busy traffic for 16 hours. A toddler might sleep for 10 to 12 hours a night, but infants may sleep up to 16 hours over the whole day.
In our review, we found that across 24 white noise machines and six phone apps, all could produce sound that violated the institute’s guideline for an eight-hour work shift. Some white noise .