What should SATS be when sleeping?

[Al1son]

DD1 (13) had overnight SATS monitoring done last night for sleep apnoea. We'll have to wait months for the results so I thought I'd ask you guys. Her SATS were 99/100 when she went to bed. I checked her at midnight and they were 93/94 and she says when she woke this morning they were 80 something. They must have been over 85 because it didn't trigger the alarm.

So does anyone know if those readings are ok for a sleeping child?

Hi there, my little one is only a baby, but the prof looking after him says good sats during sleep are above 90%, 95% of the time.

DS often dips below but it seems as long as this is for a short time and he corrects it himself, no harm done.

Just wish the machine didn't ring off every time he wiggles his foot!

Not sure how much help that is for an older child, sorry.

My DD2 had a sats monitor for her first year and has since had an overnight sats study.

They wanted them to be above 92% when asleep, and said that the odd dip below 90% wasn't to worry about as probably positional, as long as they didn't stay below 90% for more than a few seconds.

Thanks for the replies.

Going by that I don't think we've got much to worry about. That's quite a relief as I wasn't looking forward to getting her to wear a positive pressure mask every night.

when DD2 was in hospital they wouldnt let her home until her SATS at night were above 90. may be a seperate thing though

My vague understanding is that 95-99 is good. 90-95 is OK but not good long term. Under 80 is a worry. 80-90 indicates something "wrong" but I think with apnoea isn't unusual and is OK as long as it's short periods.

Al1son: we're a few months down the line from you - had several sleep studies which got progressively worse (sats down to 70's for periods) plus several apnoeic and hypopnoeic events, so we now have the B CPAP.

Its not just sats they looked with dd2 at - its also the "events" during sleep, if any. They are trying to prevent stress to the heart by improving sleep breathing in our case.

So did they just do sats or also sensors and bands around the abdomen to assess breathing rate and quality? Does her daytime alertness suffer from her sleep quality?

She can't have gone below 85 which is good because the monitor would have alarmed at that point to perhaps she's ok. She does have true apnoea which I'm only aware of since sharing a caravan in the summer holidays but I think it's a bit erratic so it may not show on this study.

The study was simply with a sats monitor, nothing else but we're waiting for a referral to the ENT consultant who took her tonsils out for sleep apnoea four years ago. Maybe he'll look into it a bit more closely.

I'm not sure how closely linked sats are to heart stress so I don't know if it's causing any damage at the moment. Hope fully I'll get more answers when the appt comes through.

A full "sleep study" is when they assess the breathing, heart rate, sats, etc with monitors all over the poor child - we came away with lots of lovely charts to decipher, then they looked at the whole picture, telling us that in her case the apnoea and hypopnoea and also paradoxical breathing are affecting her heart.You could see the heart rate climb whenever her breathing was disrupted. In our case it is made worse by very low muscle tone (she has mobility problems) and bronchiectasis.

I think not all hospitals do sleep studies - our consultant who did the sleep study also does skin and allergies!

Does your dd have an underlying cause for all this?

That's really interesting. It remains to be seen how much more in depth they'll feel the need to go.

She has AS and a few other minor issues like hypermobility, asthma and allergies but nothing that should cause sleep apnoea as far as I know. She was loads better after having her tonsils and adenoids out a few years ago but it's come back recently. I found it really stressful sleeping in the caravan with her. She definitely stops breathing completely for a good few seconds each time but I'm not sure how often these episodes happen.

I just want to be reassured that her heart isn't getting stressed by it.

think lot depends on why , dd sats in the day are around 88- 93 but its normal for her and he rbody has learnt to cope .Night time 84-90 is normal for her ( ha slung dieses ) though it is quite funny to watch drs/nurses faces when they check them

I'm glad to hear that they do go down a bit at night. Hopefully they won't have dropped too much we'll be able to relax about it all.

Best of luck

Thanks x

Alison

always good to have a base line when she's well then you know if there low for a reason ie I'll cold etc

I now don't call for help unless dd drops below 80 at night but for other dc that is dangerously low.if we had to maintain above 90 at night she would be forever in hospital

Well it looks as if we won't have to wait long to find out. Despite being told it would be a long wait we just got an appt through for next Monday. Hope that's not significant!