The Agony of a Little Girl Diagnosed with Sleep Apnea

People often say they slept like a baby after a restful night of sleep. However, that is not always the case, especially for kids suffering from obstructive sleep apnea. Sadly, most parents are not aware of this issue and it can become a very difficult problem to deal with, a problem that can affect child’s development and day to day lives.

When a child starts displaying symptoms of problems related to their sleep it is imperative to study them. It has been known for a long time that having fragmented sleep, meaning, not sleeping uninterruptedly the entire night but waking up several times can cause multiple side effects such as:

• A decrease in child’s ability to learn
• Disorders related to their behavior
• Affective disorders
• Drowsiness during daytime
• Accidents such as falls and slips

The appearance of these problems will depend on how severe the condition is. It usually takes children to display more than one of these symptoms for parents to begin worrying about a more serious issue going on. 

At the American Sleep Apnea Association, the chief patient officer, Adam Amdur faced an event along with his daughter Mia. This event made him aware that sleep apnea can affect children drastically. Both Adam and his wife Justine were familiar of this condition. They both came from a family that has Long face syndrome. Both Adam and Justine were aware of the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea since they both suffered from the condition. Being aware of the symptoms helped them to diagnose the condition in Mia at a very young age.

When Mia was two years old she was diagnosed with sleep apnea. For sleep sciences and medicine sleep study Mia was taken to Stanford Center. The condition in Mia was confirmed by this study. Mia stopped breathing nearly 27 times during the course of this sleep study. It is considered as abnormal if babies pause during their sleep. It is not a terrible concern if they pause once or twice but in case of Mia she paused around 27 times which indicated that the issue was a serious one.

Mia would have suffered learning attention problems if from a very young age she had not been treated. When she would be older she could have developed conditions related to heart and blood pressure. Thankfully her condition was properly taken care of and was treated. Mia at the age of 9 years during her summer camp was able to sleep away from home, as a regular girl she even played sports and with other children of her age she even rode horses. According to Adam the development of fatal conditions were prevented due to the early diagnosis and ongoing treatment.

These conditions could have put her life at risk. In order to prevent future problems, Mia had her tonsils removed and in order to expand her pallet and airflow she underwent two orthodontic procedures. At present she uses a CPAP during sleeping. While she is asleep this device helps her respiratory activity. Mia can make out the difference when she does not use the sleeping aid. During the entire summer camp she used CPAP.

Considerable health problems are associated with sleep hypopnea apnea syndrome. While the child is sleeping they pause for 10 to 30 seconds. Each night these interruptions can occur up to 400 times. The child may wakeup from deep restful sleep due to breathless periods. In children this is frequent and intense. If this condition is not treated then it affects the cognitive abilities of the child. 

Plethoras of symptoms are associated with the condition. Snoring, strong breathing, bruxism, night micturition, irritability, poor academic performance, behavioural disturbances, difficulty concentrating and metabolism is altered. In 4percent of child population this health problem occurs.

This condition may make the child hyperactive and hence may be misdiagnosed as ADHD. Sleep apnea in children may cause delayed learning and blood pressure problems that could be fatal and also cardiac issues. The types of sleep apnea are obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea and mixed sleep apnea. In sleep apnea, the breathing airway during sleep is partially or completely obstructed.