Causes of Snoring in Children

Occasional snoring may be normal to children. Recent studies show that 3 to 12 percent of children between the age of 1 and 9 snore. But frequency doesn’t mean normality. Habitual snoring can be a cause of a more serious medical condition called obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) or simply, sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a condition characterized by loud snoring with periods of breathing interruptions. Interruptions may be short or prolonged, usually between 5 to 30 seconds. During this period, the child's could not get straight sleep. He rouses and moves to another sleeping position, then resumes sleep. After a while he will once again begin snoring. This activity often happens several times during the night, each night. Although this condition rarely appears on children, it is very important that parents should watch out for symptoms that come along with it.

Symptoms of sleep apnea include

• Poor speech habits - talking that sounds like words over a mouthful of hot potato.
• Reduced growth rate. Children suffering from sleep apnea use more energy in breathing during the night. During meals, they tend to eat slowly since it is hard for them to breathe and chew at the same time. The result is, they have insufficient nutrients to support their growth.
• Hyperactivity. Lack of sleep can cause drowsiness on children during the day. To stay awake, children act frantically.
• Poor performance in school. Since children do not get the right sleep during the night, they tend to appear tired and lack the concentration to focus at school, thus, having a poor performance.

When these symptoms are visible, it is imperative for parents to bring their child to a pediatrician and have him examined. A child can be happy and smiling when he is brought to the doctor and therefore, it is difficult to diagnose if he really has sleep apnea. Parents are advised to record their child's snoring so that the doctor can analyze the situation in actually.

Meanwhile, sleep apnea is not the sole reason why children snore. Other reasons include allergy attack, obesity, asthma, and enlargement of adenoids and/or tonsils caused by cold or tonsillitis.

Some allergy attacks can cause swelling on the linings of the nose that can direct to the enlargement of adenoids. This keeps the child from breathing normally. This causes the child to snore. After the allergy attack, the snoring stops.

Obesity can also lead to snoring. In fact, 20% and 40% of the obese children snore. This is because fats can form around the throat that can cause constriction and makes the limited airways. Also, fats in the stomach can cause the diaphragm to function irregularly

Asthma is said to be another cause why children snore. A study revealed that 40% of the children diagnosed with asthma snore.

Enlargement of adenoids and/or tonsils caused by cold or tonsillitis also results to snoring.  While cold or tonsillitis can be cured by decongestant and antibiotics, adenoid enlargement is treated by surgical procedure to remove adenoids and tonsils.

Underdevelopment of the jaw inside the womb can cause snoring as well. There is also the possibility that the nerves and the muscles cannot control the airway properly and cause that child to snore.

The Culprits: Causes of Snoring

So what truly cause snoring. This may be quite a hard-to-answer question when were talking of only one cause. For in fact, there are many basic contributors that all funnel into the greater source of the problem.

Medically, snoring is defined as a noise caused by vibration from the airways of the respiratory tract that only appears during sleep.

Causes and Cures for Snoring

The sounds of snoring are possible since there are collapsible parts at the back of our mouth that relaxes when we sleep. Once these are at their relaxed states, the air flow will drive them to flip since they are dangling loose nearest to the throat. These structures will then strike each other as air passes which then cause them to vibrate and create sounds.

Persons bothered by this condition are affected by one of these following causes:

Top Anti Snoring Devices You Can Avail

Hearing a person who snores can be amusing, it can even be funny. But if you are living with someone who snores, a relative or a family member perhaps, then the sound might become very disturbing. If you cannot get a good night sleep and always wake up several times in the middle of the night by a sound that can be as loud as a lawnmower or a jet engine in action, then you should be thinking of anti snoring devices as a solution to the problem.

Here are popular anti snoring devices you can buy for your family member and stop him from disturbing your sleep:

Sleep apnea many anatomical issues

When I was in about 21, I got hit in the face with a baseball, hard. Hard enough to break my jaw, the orbital bone in my cheek and my nose.

They immediately wired my jaw shut for weeks. Then when the swelling went down they re-set the nose and I had a splint for a few weeks.

Flash forward a couple of years and my jaw catches and won't open and I brux like mad.

I then have jaw surgery. Fixes the catching but does nothing for the bruxing or alignment.

A few years later I break my nose but it just requires some tape, ice and aspirin.

All this time, I am a runner. 5k's, 10k's, a few 1/2 marathons. Love to run. And to mix things up, I ride a bike.

A few years later, I suffer a horrible fall and sprain the back and tear the shoulder muscles and rotator cuff. Can't exercise better part of a year.

Fell better start to run again. Things are good for about 5 years, then while running in the dark on a dirt road, I step in a hole and tear up my knee.

A quick scope and off and running for about 7 years. then the knee starts to bother me, and I can't run as long.

Then I fall in love and for a few years we are living together.

I wake up tired and can't focus and get sleepy driving. I think, I have an erratic shift so my sleep is not constant.

I have a girlfriend who likes to stay up. She complains that I snore, loud. So I make an appointment with a ENT, I am diagnosed with sleep apnea.

I am at that time about 41-43 years old. I get a c-pap machine and hate it. Opt for septoplasy surgery which does not help, and still use the c-pap machine.

Because I was in the Army, I traveled from base to base, going from a humid moldy place like South Caroline, Georgia and Virginia to humid and dusty Texas, to Utah and Idaho. And I suffered from chronic sinusitis and rhinositis.

After my second knee surgery, my running days were over. My work schedule was still crazy, now that I retired from the military, I had a desk job and worked long hours.

I gained weight at an alarming rate. Going from 130 -190 in 3 years.

I have been retired from the Army for 12 years, and would like to know if it would be consistent with medical knowledge that a broken jaw that has alignment issues, a deviated septum, chronic sinusitis and rhinositis could be what contributed to me having sleep apnea.

The weight gain didn't happen until after the diagnosis.

Now that I am getting older, post menopausal, and sleep is just harder to both fall and stay asleep, the apnea just makes it that much worse. I am tired all the time. But I need to find a doctor in Utah, who just won't say lose weight. Duh, yes I would love to, but I was diagnosed before I gained weight and a bad knee, shoulder and tired makes it really hard to find an exercise that I can fit in my schedule.

Any suggestions?
Thank you
===
 Weight Increase
by: Michelle - Yarrawonga AUSTRALIA

Hi Cyndee,

I completely empathise with you and fully understand the frustration you are going through.
Your concern about your weight is a very interesting one to me. You say the weight gain
didn't happen until after the diagnosis. Correct me if I'm wrong but by what I read, you were diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, commenced using a CPAP machine and then your weight began to increase alarmingly.

The reason I need to clarify this sequence of events is that your experiences and my own appear to be running parallel. When I commenced using CPAP machine, my weight increased expedientially, I was diagnosed morbidly obese at 130kg and ended up having surgery to reduce my weight. I strongly believe there is a link between using a CPAP machine and gaining weight at an alarming rate.

I would be very grateful if you could take the time to respond so I can be assured that I have events in the right sequence.

The more I find out about Sleep Apnea the more I realise what a dangerous sleeping giant it is. I'm sorry I can't address your other issues but I will be following to read the responses. Like I said the situations in our lives are running parallel. Like you I was in the Army and like you I have suffered many anatomical injuries. But my greatest interest is the link between using CPAP and immense weight gain.

Good luck and I'll follow the responses you receive.

Cheers Michelle

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