My friends baby stops breathing when she feels pain

[allthegirls]

My friend rang me today very concerned about her 10 month old little girl. When she hurts herself falling over etc she screams and then seems to stop breathing. Yesterday she went unconcious for a few seconds but my friend blew in her face and she seemed to come around. Has anyone ever heard of this before and what are you meant to do when they stop breathing? My daughter does it during tantrums but never for this long!!

A friend's child used to do this and the advice was to do as your friend did or to throw some cold water on his face. But that was a few years ago and they may recommend something different now. I'd certainly check it out with the doctor as it sounds very scary.

in the old days, they used frozen peas to shove down the back of toddlers that do this to control parents, but 10 mths sounds quite young to be wrapping parents around in circles like that?
I would do doctor first I think esp if too point of losing consciousness.

ds1 can still pass out now when he's hurt himself and holds his breath. He's five and I've lost count of the number of times this has happened. There's an automatic reaction in the body that means that you can't kill yourself by holding your breath. As soon as you pass out you start breathing again. I remember doing this in science at school and all of us lying on the floor and holding our breath until we passed out. Very weird experiment but put my mind at ease when ds1 was prone to doing this.

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Believe it or not, my ds2 aged 4 months has been doing this ever since he suffers pain from colic. I used to panic till I read in the Baby Whisper book that some babies hold their breath when suffering from severe pain in colic. He has held it for so long before that I was terrified he was going to pass out, but luckily never has. If he does I will be quick to call an ambulance.

Thanks for the replies. My friend is seeing the doctor later today but I told her what you all said and it has put her mind to rest a bit knowing this is not a one off case.