Can anyone tell me anything about sighs/pauses in breathing ?

My 16 month old son, has central and obstructive apnea. His monitor alarm will go off and lately he has had a couple of episodes where its been 25 seconds before he will take another breath. The doctor that we see for his apnea believes that these are deep signs/pauses in breathing and not related to central/obstructive apnea. Has anyone heard off this ?

Your feed back is appreciated.
Thanks.

Pauses in breathing are technically apneas.  The sighs that you are hearing could be a gasp for air after an arousal.  If you have any other specific questions feel free to ask.
Tim

Hi Sarah.  My 22 month old son also sighs and then doesn't breathe for about 8-12 seconds.  He was originally diagosed with OSA so we did the T&A at 14 months.  A follow-up sleep study still showed a couple of central apneas but after they were reviewed by a pediatric neurologist who specializes in sleep disorders, he said they were all OK.  He told us that if the sigh and then pause are associated with some type of arousal or just rolling over in his sleep, then those are normal.  He still does it, but from what the doctor said, they are just a few a night which everyone does.  25 seconds of not breathing, however, is very concerning to a parent and I'm not sure if a pause that long should just be dismissed.  Have they done a formal sleep study on him?

Sara

Thank you for your replies,

Tim - we dont actually hear in 'sigh', this is the term that the pulminologist uses.

Sara - Yes, we have had one sleep study done at 8 months, were getting ready to repeat it in a couple off weeks. Just waiting on some new allergy medicine to start working and then see how he is. 25 seconds, is an awfully long time to not be breathing, yet, the doctor seems to think its ok. We dont, and thats why were going to repeat the study. It wasnt fun when my son was 8 months old, I can only imagine how it will be now.  How old was your son when they did a sleep stufy  on him ?

Thank you,
Sarah

He was around 13 months with the first sleep study and 17 months for the second which was post T&A.  Both were difficult to be quite honest.  They didn't have a crib and he doesn't like sleeping in a bed.  Plus, he would wake up every time the tech tried to attach monitors to him.  Finally, we just agreed to not worry about a couple of them.  

Good luck and feel free to ask me more questions!