Snoring in kids is often viewed as harmless, cute, or funny, but snoring that persists for weeks or months at a time should be a serious concern for parents. Snoring can lead to a variety of health issues, and it’s often a sign of sleep apnea.
Sleep Apnea
Disruptive snoring can lead to difficulty sleeping, especially in the case of sleep apnea. In obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, the airway used for breathing is blocked completely for a few moments while sleeping, leading to a drop in oxygen levels. To keep functioning, the brain startles the body awake to resume proper breathing. This awakening can occur many times over the course of a night, leading to all sorts of issues for your child.
Attention
The constant disruption in sleep can lead to attention problems during the day. Exhausted kids have a harder time concentrating on tasks and may exhibit hyperactive behavior. Many kids who are diagnosed with ADHD are shown to have sleep apnea. Once their apnea is treated, their hyperactive behavior subsides.
Learning
Poor sleep is also detrimental to learning in general. When you go to sleep, your brain is freed up to sort through everything you learned during the day. If that process is interrupted—or if you never even get to deep sleep—learning is severely impacted.
This is especially important for children. In the case of sleep apnea, which makes deep, quality sleep difficult to get, they will have a harder time retaining the information they learn during the day. If left alone long enough, apnea can have a lifelong effect on learning ability, so it’s important to treat it early.
Health Concerns
Apnea also has a number of physical health concerns attached for kids. These include increased blood pressure, hypertension, and heart problems later in life. The fatigue from lost sleep also leads to cravings for more calories during the day and diminished desire to exercise. This naturally leads to high cholesterol, obesity, and the various health concerns that accompany them.
Getting Treatment
If your son or daughter snores, you need to act promptly. For most kids with sleep apnea, their snoring is a result of enlarged tonsils or adenoids that obstruct normal breathing at night. The Snoring Center provides a quick, easy solution to this with our laser tonsillectomy procedure. The procedure only takes an hour, has minimal discomfort, and allows your child to get back to life as usual the next day.
To learn more about snoring and our minimally invasive procedures, contact The Snoring Center today.
