I'm wondering if any of you have heard of a connection between atopic dermatitis and sleep fragmentation in children??  I found one or two studies that at least showed that there was an interest in looking into a possible connection, but didn't ever find anything conclusive.  My dd (7) just had her first sleep study a couple of weeks ago and while she didn't have many apnea episodes (ahi 2.0), her sleep was pretty fragmented (enough to cause her to feel/function like she did have apnea during the day).  She is very allergic to grass, weeds, molds, cats and soy (weekly allergy shots) and also has atopic dermatitis (which means lots of itching/scratching day and night).  I think that it would be the scratching that would end up waking her and causing the fragmentation....??  Any thoughts??

I believe that an AHI > 1.0 can be enough to concern a pediatrician. It really depends on the physician.

Seeing that sleep fragmentation can be caused by pain, it would seem logical to think that irritation of the skin could cause frequent arousals too.

Did your daughter snore? Did they monitor End-Tidal CO2?

I don't think that she did much snoring the night of the study, but she does do it from time to time at home.  Honestly, I have no idea about the End-Tidal CO2....??  I should have a copy of the study by Monday.  Hopefully that will give me a few more answers.  There's so much that I don't know about sleep disorders, but with everyone in my family but me affected in some way, I am learning pretty fast.  I think it would be interesting to do a study on a person who doesn't have apnea, but whose whole family does, just to see how much sleep can be affected by others.     

RAM_Sleep, I really appreciate your input on this forum!!  Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions!!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend.