Apnea and periodic breathing in healthy full-term infants, 12-18 months of age.

Many children older than 12 months of age are now on home monitors. Home pneumograms performed on normal infants have established standards, and have been used to evaluate infants during their first year. However, no standards have been described for infants older than 12 months. We, therefore, recorded the standard pneumogram on 88 full-term healthy infants who were 12-18 months of age. We analyzed the recordings for average respiratory and heart rates, apnea (greater than or equal to 6 seconds) density, longest apnea, periodic breathing, and bradycardia for 12 hours. We compared the values in males vs. females and in infants 12-14.9 months vs. 15.0-18.0 months of age. Since there was no difference in any parameter measured in any group, we combined the values to determine the normal values for this population.