8 Month Old Baby Long Breath During Sleep

Zarmina Ehsan

Dr. Zarmina Ehsan, Children's Mercy Sleep Heart

Sleep apnea is a sleep-related animate disorder. There are two types: obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or central slumber apnea (CSA). Essentially, OSA is an obstruction or narrowing in the path from your nose down to the opening of your lungs (upper airway). There tin be different reasons for the obstruction or narrowing, just it all results in less air (oxygen) going from the outside into your lungs. CSA is a type of sleep apnea where there is a delay in the point from your brain telling you to breathe when you lot are asleep. The prevalence in infants is still unknown, but between one and 5 percent of all children have sleep apnea. When detected early, sleep apnea tin can be treated to forestall other long-term complications.

How to tell if your infant has slumber apnea

There are several signs a parent tin can look for when their kid is sleeping to make up one's mind if they might have sleep apnea. The showtime thing they'll want to exercise is mind to the infant's breathing. If your child routinely pauses for breaths, gasps for air, chokes, has noisy breathing or snorts you should let your health care provider know. You lot should also be concerned if you hear what sounds like snoring and y'all hear it persistently dark after dark. It's non uncommon for little ones to cry and to squirm in their bed, but infants don't snore.

Another important thing to annotation is that if a child has sleep apnea, they'll too accept difficulty breathing while taking naps during the day too. Sleep apnea isn't exclusive to nighttime time sleeping only.

How to diagnose sleep apnea

According to the American University of Sleep Medicine (AASM), the only style to properly diagnose sleep apnea is to have your child participate in an overnight sleep written report in a sleep lab. (At this time, the AASM has non approved domicile sleep testing for children.) During the slumber study, which is chosen a polysomnogram, sensors are placed on your child to monitor their encephalon waves, heartbeat and breathing activity during dissimilar sleep stages. This helps find issues and tin pinpoint the nature of the breathing problem.

Before taking your child to a slumber lab, you'll want to make sure it's accredited for children, because the mode sleep studies are interpreted in infants and children are different from adults. Moreover, pediatric sleep labs offer the expertise of having technicians that are expert at working with children.

Causes of sleep apnea

Obstructive Sleep Apnea

OSA is usually acquired when the soft tissue in the back of the throat collapses and blocks the upper airway during slumber. Infants with medical problems like craniofacial syndromes (Pierre Robin sequence, small jaws, Down syndrome), "floppy" airways due to laryngomalacia or large adenoids and big tissue at the back of their throat are at most risk.

Cardinal Sleep Apnea

CSA is rarer. This is when the kid's brain is misfiring and not telling the body to breathe when information technology should. There are some concerns that children born premature or if the female parent smokes during pregnancy that this tin can increment the risk of central sleep apnea in infants. Central slumber apnea is most commonly idiopathic (cause unknown). It tin too be seen in children with neurologic insults (i.e. brain tumors, hydrocephalus and VP shunts, cerebral palsy, Chiari malformations, and brain injury).

Is sleep apnea life-threatening?

Severe sleep apnea can be life-threatening. If left untreated, it tin can affect the child'due south sleep architecture considering the brain continually wakes the child up to jiff. If this happens frequently enough, the infant doesn't get restful slumber, which can affect functioning during the day. After time, this tin can cause long-term damage to the centre, brain and other parts of the trunk as well.

How to treat sleep apnea in infants

The treatment depends on the severity and type of sleep apnea (CSA or OSA). For OSA, some infants will need surgery, merely most volition outgrow it as they go bigger and their upper airway gets larger. Others may need to be treated with oxygen to provide breathing back up until they can outgrow it. If the infant is four months of age or less and their slumber blueprint is less-predictive, we recommend they clothing a nasal cannula at all times. If the infant is older and has established a sleep pattern, then parents tin can take off the nasal cannula when they're awake. Other options for treatment include wearing continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or in rare and farthermost cases, a tracheostomy.

The treatment ultimately depends on the nature of the medical problem, but the sooner the problem is diagnosed, the sooner it tin be treated.

Learn more almost Pediatric Pulmonology at Children'south Mercy and the Sleep Disorder Program, the merely pediatric program in the region accredited by the American Academy of Slumber Medicine.

Click hither to take a virtual bout of Children'southward Mercy Slumber Lab.

To make an date with a Slumber Specialist, please telephone call (913) 696-8518.

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Source: https://news.childrensmercy.org/sleep-apnea-in-babies/

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