White noise machines have become something of a miracle-worker for parents who want nothing more than to get a good night’s sleep.

The premise is simple: you turn the machine on while your baby is asleep and the low-level noise helps to drown out any background sounds – your other child screaming, next door’s dog barking, the police siren wailing down the street – that would otherwise wake them up.

But Dr Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon and scientist, isn’t a fan.

In an episode of the Huberman Lab Podcast, host Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford School of Medicine, asked Dr Chang whether white noise is bad for young children, to which the expert responded we don’t have an answer yet.

That said, he did go on to say parents are using white noise machines almost universally now, so it’s an important question to address.

“I’ve got three kids of my own and was very tempted to think about how to use some of these tools to just soothe them and get them to bed, especially when I was so tired and exhausted,” said Dr Chang.

“But I think that there is a cost, you know, to think a little bit about. We’re not exposed to continuous white noise naturally.”

So, did he use white noise with his kids then? In short, no.

“There is a value to having really salient, structured sounds that are part of our natural environment to actually have the brain develop........

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