DD (14mo) holding breath and fainting when she cries...

[NotYourPrincess]

Occasionally, when really upset, DD will cry so intensely that she can't breathe and briefly faints, which allows her to relax and take a breath. I spoke to NHS direct about it when she was younger and they said it was something that she'd grow out of. My GP was basically bewildered and no help at all.

It wasn't too severe until recently but twice in the last week she has fainted, gone limp and been unresponsive for about 30 seconds afterwards. After fainting her eyes look vacant and once she even fainted again. It's utterly terrifying and I'm finding it really upsetting, even just writing about it now. She is, of course, really distressed when she comes to.

Has anyone else experienced this? I think I'm hoping for some reassurance that she actially will grow out of it, and that she's not going to do herself serious damage by lack of oxygen.

Apparently that was my little sisters favourite trick too, my Mum said says at first it was very frightening but the GP confirmed that she would grow out of it and would not hold her breath to death iyswim as as soon as she fainted her body would breath again. Advice I think was to ignore as much as possible as it's an attention thing. Easier said than done though.. BTW my sister is now 33 and as far as I know no longer holds her breath and faints when she doesn't get her own way

Thanks Wafflepuss, very reassuring. I'm prob a bit PFB with her...

I don't know if this would help, but when my son was about 6 months or so and got really worked up he would hold his breath. I blew in his face to make him gasp.

DD1 did this and I know how alarming it can be.

She would cry, hold her breath and go blue - it really panicked me!

I read somewhere the thing to do to stop it was to use the crook of my little finger to press gently down on her tongue, drawing it forward which made her take a breath. It worked and she only did it once or twice more.

Blowing in her face doesn't work at all, DH used to insist on doing it but it only served to make her inhale more, which is really the opposite of what she needs to do - I will try that tongue thing though, have been off googling but not come across anything like that. Thanks :)

My little sister used to do this too and she just grew out of it- when she fainted, she breathed again. She's 22 and doesn't do it anymore! Very scary but not dangerous in the long term I shouldn't have thought.

My DD is a breathholder......started probably around 12-13 months - very scary at first but eventually you get used to it and can recognise when they are likely to do it.

It used to happen frequently but as she's got older it happens less and less (she is now nearly 3). The actual breathholding and fainting is not harmful to them (falling to the floor when doing it is probably the biggest risk).

DD does in fact have two different types of breatholding - on the one hand is when she gets upset (from anger, frustration, tantrummy type thing), cries, holds breath, goes red in the face, faints and then starts breathing. Phew.

The other is more specifically when DD gets upset from a shock such as a nasty fall, or a big fright in which case she'll cry, hold her breath and faint but it's much quicker and rather than go red/blue in the face she'll be quite white and pale. After these episodes she is always much more disorientated when she comes round and will often actually go to sleep for a while. There is a specific name for this which I can't remember at the moment - I'll look it up. Again, it's not harmful in the long run - but it's still bloody awful having to deal with it.

My sister did this too, she is now 46.

The GP told my DM to slap her across the face, throw her on the sofa and ignore her. Glad to say those days have passed.

at your mum's gp annapolly

Bloody hell, what a sympathetic GP!

Thanks so much for the replies, it really helps to know that DD isn't the only one, or doing herself any damage.

It's still flipping scary, though! :)