Doctors have issued a warning to parents with noisy sleepers that their kids could be suffering from a serious medical condition.

Children who snore, are moody, seek attention or lack concentration could be suffering from obstructive sleep apnea – a condition which causes pauses in breathing while asleep and results in less oxygen travelling to the lungs or repetitive wake ups, reports 9 news.

“It’s really not normal for a child to snore at all,” Paediatric Sleep Physician Dr Scoot Burgers said.

“No-one is going to die from having obstructive sleep apnea but more importantly they end up having broken sleep so through the night the child’s not getting the good quality sleep they need for learning and feeling refreshed in the morning.

Impact Learning And Behaviour

“In the long-term, there could be impacts on their learning and general behaviour. There is some suggestion that some children might even have 10 points lower IQ scores if it’s persistence and long-term.

“The most common symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea are snoring particularly for a child who’s mouth-breathing or struggling with their breathing in their sleep.”

Treatments for obstructive sleep apnea include medication, taking out tonsils and adenoids, or using a machine which provides oxygen.

Surprisingly some specialists have reported success after giving these treatments to some children diagnosed with ADHD – often the symptoms of the two conditions are hard to differentiate.

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