Possible Involuntary Breathing Spasms?!?!

[drook33]

My now two year old daughter has been experiencing some of the same symptoms others have posted on here since she was 1 month old.  Her "breathing spasm episodes" usually last 10-12 hours with each spasm being less than 30 seconds.  She has NEVER lost consciousness or changed color.  USUALLY after crying, she involuntarily takes a deep breath in, seems to hold it and then suddenly lets it out.  As as infant, these "episodes" resembled siezure like activity.  We've had EEGs, EKGs, Barrium Swallow, Xrays, MRI of her head, etc and all test continued to come back normal.  Peds office continues to advise us to let her out grow it.  We have been doing this for two years now and she continues to do it.  She often will continue to have these episodes in her sleep.  Most often they will wake her, she will scream for a minute and then put herself back to sleep.  I was content with allowing her to outgrow this, but now that she is a toddler and can express feelings and emotion, this really seems to be bothering her to some degree.  I cannot find much, if any, information about this kind of problem online anywhere except here.  Has anyone found ANY information in regards to these types of spasms?!? They usually occur after a hard cry. Any information would be helpful!   Thank you so much!!!!

[cowlady1179]

my 12 week old daughter has had a crying/screaming fit the last 2 days.  after i calm her down she has these spasms too.  has anyone figured it out yet?

[llidmb]

my daughter has the same exact problem and tonight i finally typed in the right words to find your post.  do you have an update on anything since you wrote this in 2009?  We first noticed it with ours at 2 months old.  We were going to try the cry-it-out method because I was returning to work and needed to have her sleeping through the night.  that lasted all of one night because when i went to soothe her after she cried (HARD) for 3-5 minutes she laid in my arms breathing fine but would have these involuntary breathing spasms.  it has happened after her hard crying fits still to this day and she is now 13 months.  I hardly let her get worked up too hard because of this breathing thing but recently she has been waking in the middle of the night.  we dont rush to get her because she usually soothes herself.  The other nights she does not soothe herself back to sleep so she ends up with the breathing spasms afterwards because she cried hard.  The way i describe them is they are kind of like the hiccups but each hiccup is her gasping for air.  She breathes perfectly fine (doesnt hold her breath) and still does this.  i am so confused.

[Sweetpea11_82]

Hi.  My 3 1/2 month old daughter has had this happen about 3 times since she's been born, tonight being the most recent and worst episode yet.  Each time this happens she has just had a hard cry.  She tenses up her face and stops breathing for a second or two, and that makes her scared, mad, and uncomfortable (I'm sure), so she just screams harder an harder, making the "spasms" that much worse.  It took over an hour to calm her tonight, and even after she calmed down she was still having these spasms for another 20 minutes or so.  It's very scary and is starting to make we wonder if there is something serious to be worried about.  My husband said we would probably take her to the doctor tomorrow, but I wanted to see if anyone else had any information on this.  Thank you, Sarah