Sleep apnea in children

Sleep apnea in children is actually more common than many people realize. It can be a hard job for parents to identify that their child has sleep apnea, and throughout this article I will give you some tips that will hopefully help determine if your child has sleep apnea. Just in case you don’t know much about sleep apnea, there is two primary forms – Central Sleep Apnea (CSA) and Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) There is also another form which is more rare and is called ‘mixed sleep apnea’ which is both CSA and OSA.

So as I said earlier sleep apnea in children can be common. Although fortunately, it is possible that it will go away on its own. With the majority of sleep apnea being developed at the tender age of only 1 years old. But do not panic if your baby has sleep apnea symptoms because more often than not your child will outgrow the symptoms as they mature. In cases such as this then the chances are that your baby has central sleep apnea, as OSA is more common in older children. In fact research has shown that there is an estimated 2% of all children that has obstructive sleep apnea.

So how do I know If my child has sleep apnea?

So this is what it boils down too. Identifying that your child has sleep apnea is the hard bit, once you’ve done that you know exactly what might be happening to your child and the symptoms can be… I’m not going to lie, quite freightning. They could include; Gaging or changing color to blue/grey, in severe cases your baby might stop breathing altogether, so its no surprise that sleep apnea in children can be very dangerous and even life threatening.

Having said that, just because your childs breathing seems a bit unusual does not mean that it’s sleep apnea in fact irregular breathing is very common in babies. But, any major changes in breathing and you should take your child to the doctors ASAP! Usually in this case your child might stop breathing for 6 to 8 seconds so it’s very important you take action.

Snoring can also be a sign of sleep apnea, but not just sleep apnea… many other conditions can cause snoring so it’s important that you take your baby to the doctor if she/he snores.

Is sleep apnea in children treatable?

Short answer: Yes. But, most sleep apnea treatments take a long time to have any affect so don’t expect your childs sleep apnea to clear up after a trip to the doctors. Surgery is another form of treatment that is available with certain types of sleep apnea, such as enlarged tonsils. But by far the most effective and the most common form of treating sleep apnea is by using a CPAP machine. Basically all these do is help your childs breathing by giving your child a continuous flow of air as he/she sleeps.