Obstructive sleep apnea- do children die from not being able to breath in their sleep

[LadyP31]

I am a worried mum, please be gentle. And thank you in advance to anyone/everyone that replies.

So today, I am convinced that my child has Obstructive Sleep Apnea from reading the information (which also included a video of a little boy with apnea) in the British lung foundation. I went to the GP yesterday and showed her a video of my toddler struggling to breath in her sleep and she immediately referred her to the ENT. So I am waiting for the appointment to come through. I have been doing some reading online and came across this scientific peer reviewed article (dx.doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2012-202561) that found mortality in children with Obstructive Sleep Apnea drastically higher than healthy control children. But it did not state the exact cause of the deaths.

My GP has told me to take her to the A&E at night if I am really concerned however, I think that even if I do that they wont be able to carry out all the assessments and treatment by going this route. Meaning it is probably best that I wait for the referral appointment.

While I am waiting, I am concerned that my child might stop breathing in her sleep and something bad might happen eg being starved of oxygen. I know that this is a community of parents and most of us here do not have a medical background. Has some experienced horrible complications in children due to sleep apnea?

No, the brain stem always kicks in and the child starts breathing again. Long term it is associated with poor outcomes, but there isn’t an immediate risk of death. My DS has had adenotonsilectomy to treat this.

How old is your child? Our first DC had OSA which I think peaked around age 2-3 and did get better. We had and ENT referral and he had a sleep study carried out at around his 3rd birthday, and (I kid you not) it was the only time he ever slept through the night. The trace came back perfect! How is that even possible?!

His apnoea greatly improved over the next couple of years, although he was still a monster snorer. He had his tonsils out a couple of months ago at age 5 (for recurrent infection, not apnoea) and he has finally stopped snoring. There were no adenoids to be found during the operation, so I think he was in the process of outgrowing the apnoea, I certainly haven't seen an apnoea event for many months now.

SO what am I saying? That the only way you can really tell if apnoea is an issue is through a sleep study (we did a home one because I had a baby at home too but I would recommend a hospital one if you can). The GP is right, A&E is the only place to get help for an urgent and immediate concern in the middle of the night. Apnoea is something that most kids grow out of, and the tonsillectomy was fairly brutal. Our child needed it but without the infection, and unless the sleep study showed me a very good reason to remove the T's and A's I would have waited

Thank you @fizzicles and @Myshoesarenew for your reassuring replies.

@ Myshoesarenew My daughter has just turned 1 and half years today. And what a predicament that your boy slept so well during the sleep test. haha they seem to do that. My daughter when she was around 4-5months who had been crying non-stop for days and had never really smiled, started smiling at the doctors and nurses when we were at the hospital.

Ok, well if you are very worried the A&E route might (and only might) speed up a referral, but until you get to the sleep study you won't know much about the severity. Surgery is harder the smaller they are so I think they would want a really compelling reason to go in, especially under 2.

Most importantly, don't listen to us (random internet strangers) if you're seeing something very worrying, e.g. very long pauses that are very frequent.

The ENT will want a decent quality video of the sleeping and apnoea event to observe at the appointment,