Frequency of obstructive and mixed sleep apneas in 1,023 infants.

STUDY

OBJECTIVES

To collect normative data on the frequency of obstructive and mixed sleep apneas in healthy infants.

STUDY

DESIGN

1100 infants were recorded during one night in a sleep laboratory.

SETTING

the recordings were performed in an infant sleep laboratory.

PATIENTS: The recordings of 1023 infants were used for analysis, the data of 77 infants being excluded because of poor recording quality. The infants were born full-term, were healthy at the time of study, had no history of apnea and were aged between 2 and 28 weeks. The polysomnographic recordings were analyzed visually and were subdivided according to the age of the subjects into 2-7 weeks, 8-11 weeks, 12-15 weeks, 16-19 weeks and 20-27 weeks of life.

INTERVENTIONS: NA.

MEASUREMENTS AND

RESULTS

At 2-7 weeks of life, obstructive apneas (p=.013) and mixed apneas (p=.004) were significantly more frequent than at any other age group. At 8 to 11 weeks of life, obstructive apneas were significantly more frequent in boys than girls (p=.016).

CONCLUSIONS

The present findings add to our knowledge of infants' respiratory characteristics during sleep.