Should parents drug babies on long flights?

Parents taking infants on long flights are turning to medication to help their children sleep. But is the practice safe - or a dangerous abuse of parental power?

On a recent afternoon flight from Miami to Los Angeles, travellers were impressed with the three young children who slept most of the way and then played quietly. How sweet and well behaved they were, the passengers commented.

But the woman sitting next to me was not buying it.

"I think she drugged them," she whispered, gesturing toward the mother watching a film as her children snoozed.

Parents who medicate their babies and toddlers with allergy or cough medicine on long flights say it helps the children sleep in increasingly cramped planes and helps combat jetlag. It is a polarising topic on parenting blogs, with debates often turning nasty.
On the Urban Baby website, which allows users to post anonymously, a typical post about how to occupy tots on long flights quickly grows heated: