Our number one job as parents is to raise healthy, happy children who turn into healthy, happy, and responsible adults. But each of us is new to parenting with our first child, and even with the second, third, fourth, or fifth, each is different. Each child will have different things that make them happy, laugh, smile, sad, mad, and sick, which is just one of the many things that make parenting so hard.
Another thing that makes parenting hard is that you don’t know everything that could ail them. One thing that parents and doctors often overlook is pediatric sleep-disordered breathing (SDB). It’s a term that encompasses a range of sleep-breathing disorders, starting with light snoring and ending with severe sleep apnea.
Did you think sleep apnea was an adult male condition? Many people do. But the truth is that anyone can suffer from sleep apnea or conditions along the sleep-disordered breathing continuum: men, women, old, young, overweight, and healthy. Sleep-disordered breathing is not a picking condition. It can happen to anyone.
What is Sleep-Disordered Breathing?
While there are several conditions on the sleep-disordered breathing scale, having one doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll worsen. Still, it could.
Snoring
Snoring is a symptom and condition along the scale that is readily overlooked because it’s so common in today’s society. “He snores just like his Daddy!”. It might seem cute, but it’s not because it indicates that your child is struggling to breathe. Snoring, in anyone of any age, is the sound of air rushing past sagging soft tissues in the airway. If these tissues were not in the way, they wouldn’t vibrate and cause the snoring sound.