Hi sleepydave and all,

I've long suspected that my now 4yr old stops breathing and I finally presuaded her Dr to test for something. He suggested a 2 channel home study monitor, which we did. The company that provided the monitor then declined to analyze the data saying 2 channel is not sensitive enough for a child of 4 - we need a 6 channel monitor at least for home study. They then offered to give raw data to the Dr. He analyzed it with a specialist and said that my kid had 8, 20 sec breathing stopping episodes in 15 mins, from 4.45am -5am. Her hearts slowed down to 60bpm. This is all the info so far. Some pulmunary specialist advised that as long as the episodes didn't go over 20secs there's no need to do anything else. What do you recommend the next steps should be? My kid does not snore, has quite restless sleep, moves around a lot, and her breathing stops after a large sigh, she then breathes out and carries on as normal. These episodes are quite frequent and shorter than 10sec when I am awake and watching her. I am not sure what happens at night when I am asleep. I've been noticing the breathing stop from the time she was 3 yrs old and never before that. Pls help - what next? Any sleep centers or specialists in Orange County, CA area?

Lala, lala, lala.  (Hmm, sounds like a Christmas tune, don't it?)

Ah, yes, I remember:

Lala's Other Post

I won't remind you how I said 9 times (Really!  Count 'em!) to get a sleep study.  Even the specific montage items, like an ETCO2 channel.  A two channel whatever the heck it is ain't a sleep study.  

Oh well, water under the bridge, but everything we said back then still goes now.

You might want to go into this thing backwards.  Like find a good accredited Sleep Lab that does kids (at least a 100 a year) and then find the sleep docs associated with it.  The Board Certified credential is essential.  Pediatric pulmonologist boarded in sleep would be great, but that's a lot to shoot for.

Don't forget you're trying to find out the nature of this sleep disorder.  You're still not even sure that it's OSA, it could be something else, or in addition to OSA.
sleepydave

I finally did persuade my doc to schedule a sleep study. We are having it done at Chalk - Children's Hospital in Orange County, CA. I hope this is a good place? I'll let you know of the outcome. During her sleep, though, they did record the heart beat drop down to 60 beats per minute or even "high 50s". Do I have to request anything else to be done, or will sleep study tell me if she has arhytmias, etc?

Hi lala:
They do a single ECG lead to discern heart rate and gross arrhythmias, I think it's gonna turn out to be basic brady/tachycardia.  Speaking of which, yeah, 50s is starting to get down there, especially in a 4 year old.

Don't forget the ETCO2.
sleepydave