Sleep Apnea in Children Can Be a Dangerous Problem
Sleep Apnea and Snoring – What You Need to Know
December 7, 2016Sleep Apnea Can Appear in Toddlers
December 14, 2016Obstructive sleep apnea in children can be a big problem, especially if it is left untreated. It can encompass
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anything from a little disturbance in how your child breaths at night, all the way to their airway being totally obstructed, which their body often takes as an episode of choking. The longer this goes on untreated, the more difficulty your child is going to have sleeping. If there is any chance that your child could have sleep apnea, the more you can keep yourself informed, the better you are going to be able to care for your child.
How Many Kids Does Sleep Apnea Really Affect?
Sleep apnea, in some form, can affect as many as 10% of children in the Columbus, Ohio area, but full-blown obstructive sleep apnea can affect anywhere from 2 to 4 percent of children. This means that not only do they snore, but at certain points during the night, something obstructs their airway enough to cause them to stop breathing. This means that their body responds by increasing their blood pressure, dropping their oxygen levels, slowing their heart rates, and waking up their brains to get them back to normal breathing. This can disrupt their sleep and leave them feeling the effects the next day. The problem is, if this happens every night for your child, each day they are feeling those same effects.
Symptoms of Sleep Apnea in Your Child
Typically, the most obvious of symptoms is hearing your child loudly snore nearly every night. This shows that there is something that is in the way of their airway, but doesn’t point out what that something is. Another symptom that most parents witness, which can be incredibly unnerving, is hearing your child completely stop breathing for anywhere from just a couple of seconds, to a full minute, occasionally more. This can happen only once now and again, or it can happen multiple times each night.
During the day, you will likely notice that your child is more irritable and has a lot more trouble focusing on what is going on. The snoring could cause your child to have a sore throat during the day, which can cause them to feel like they are getting sick regularly. Your child may be anything from sleepy and foggy, to hyperactive and bouncing off the walls. You may also notice that your child is having trouble with potty training or bed wetting, when they suffer from sleep apnea.
Consequences That Can Accompany Pediatric Sleep Apnea
If your child has pediatric sleep apnea, they could suffer a lot of consequences, especially if it does not get properly treated. Something as simple as getting disturbed a few times at night while they sleep could do a lot of damage to their ability to focus and do well in school, consequently affecting their grades. It can also affect your child socially, if other children find out they snore, because kids tend to pick on other children who are different than they are. It can also affect them socially for other reasons, including them potentially being short-tempered with their peers, and them being too tired during the day to go out and socialize with other kids their age in their neighborhoods.
When your child has sleep apnea, it can also affect their health. People with sleep apnea are more likely to suffer from bed wetting because their body creates more urine than normal at night due to how often they are awake. They are also more likely to face obesity. When their body struggles during the day, they tend to be too tired to be physically active, increasing their weight. On top of that, children that struggle with sleep apnea also tend to have more lung and heart issues than children that do not struggle with sleep apnea at night.
Getting Sleep Apnea Diagnosed
When you need to get your child diagnosed, it is important that you speak with a doctor or dentist with sleep apnea experience. They can give you a very solid idea if your child is suffering from sleep apnea based on the symptoms you express to them, but then they can also go through and test for it. The most common test is done while your child sleeps. Their sleep patterns are monitored, as are their breathing patterns. If your child does, in fact, stop breathing or struggle to breathe during that sleep test, you will often go home with a positive sleep apnea diagnosis and beginning treatment plan.