Posts Tagged ‘Childhood Years’

Severe Sleep Apnea In Children

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Severe Sleep Apnea In Children

It might come as a big shock to discover that there are a number of youngsters sleep disorders that are able to affect how well a child sleeps, and how much benefit they receive out of the sleep they do get. Studies show that on average 30 percent of youngsters actually endure sleep problems throughout their childhood years.

Believe it or not, kids can have problems such as sleep walking, nightmares and even certain forms of sleep apnea and other grave breathing circumstances. Most people don’t understand that kids in their school years need to get between nine and twelve hours sleep but surprisingly, a lot of kids don’t get close to that.

There are other sleep problems such as grinding of the teeth, bed wetting, and even banging their head are believed to be a serious conditions if they occur during sleep. The most common of these however are night terrors, nightmares, and walking in their sleep but they are generally considered harmless.

If a child has a sleep walking problem, then parents must work to make sure that they keep tabs on their child’s problem so it won’t end up in injury for the child. This can be done by ensuring there are no dangerous areas around the home. In most cases, the child will outgrow the common sleep disorders they may face at least by their teen years.

A primary care physician can give advice in any case of nightmares, head banging, teeth grinding, bedwetting and more severe problems such as sleep apnea. All of these could be signs that there are more severs problems if they continue to happen well beyond the average age of the child. It is fortunate that many of these circumstances have an age where the average child will have outgrown them.

Think about the symptoms of child sleep troubles if the child has problems concentrating in class. They may also fall asleep when they are travelling in a car or talking to someone or while reading or in class. These could potentially be signals that your kid has something of a sleep disorder in the evenings. In the case of sleep apnea watch for symptoms like breathing through the mouth as well as issues with performance in school or restless sleep.

The best things about these types of sleep problems is that they are easy to remedy and mostly are caused by unrelated illnesses and disorders potentially easier to treat. Unless your child is experiencing symptoms that are dangerous for them so know for the most part that children will outgrow the majority of these disorders given time. If you are still concerned about your child then speaking with your primary care physician can give you a number of suggestions on what you can do in the home in order to put your child on the right track.

In some cases there are psychological considerations that will influence how well your child sleeps. It’s possible you could get a referral to speak with a specialist in mental health to check for any problems such as ADHD.