Little kids on powerful meds should be about as common as unicorns–and not the ones you’ll find painted on nursery walls.

But alarming new research finds that children 5 years old and under–including tykes as young as 2 years old–are being given some of the most powerful and dangerous drugs in the entire Big Pharma arsenal: antipsychotic meds that in most cases are not even approved for use in young kids.

In fact, a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry found that the number of little kids on powerful antipsychotics has doubled in recent years.

These drugs should have no place at all in pediatrics… but the researchers found that 1 in 650 5-year-olds was being given these meds between 1999 and 2001. By 2007, that number doubled to 1 in 329. Overall, 1 in 1,300 children was given these meds from 1999 to 2001, rising to 1 in 630 by 2007, according to the study.

These are the same drugs given to adults to help control powerful psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder–drugs like risperidone, which can turn an adult’s life upside down with side effects that range from digestive problems, headaches and heartburn to male breast growth, missed menstrual periods, sexual problems and more.

These are powerful medications that alter delicate brain chemistry. It’s bad enough for adults… but we have no idea what kind of damage they can do to little brains that are still growing and developing.

Tots given these meds were often diagnosed with developmental disorders, disruptive behavior disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder–overused diagnoses that can often change from doctor to doctor.

You’d think putting one of these kids on a potent brain drug would be an absolute last resort for the worst cases, and only after everything else has failed.

You’d think… and you’d be wrong.

Less than half of these kids given powerful drugs for supposed mental problems received any actual mental health services or even a visit to a shrink, according to the study.

That’s not falling through the gaps–that’s a massive hole in the system, pulling in more children every single time they’re forced to swallow these needless drugs.