8 month old baby with strange breathing behavior at night

[hbdub]

We are extremely concerned with an unusual breathing behavior that our 8 month old daughter often displays while sleeping.  To date no doctor has been able to give us a clear diagnosis.  The behavior is similar to the gasping a baby might do after intense crying, as is she was trying to catch her breath.  However, our baby will periodically exhibit this breathing while sleeping, with no apparent cause.  This breathing behavior usually wakes us up out of a sleep as it is so loud we can hear it over the monitor.  It does not appear to wake our daughter up, but she is observed to gasp, whimper and let out brief cries throughout the episode.  We have never witnessed any significant color changes, so we assume she is getting enough oxygen, but her breathing does appear to pause for approximately 4-5 seconds in between the quick breaths. Sometimes the breaths are so intense she starts to snort and it is very frightening to watch.  It rarely will stop on its own and usually my husband and I have to go to her and intervene.  Usually we start by rubbing her back or changing her position (both of which rarely work), but we eventually resort to picking her up to wake her.  Sometimes she wakes easily, but, often, our attempts to intervene agitate her and she starts to cry- sometimes hysterically. However, once she is fully awake, the breathing behavior stops and she is happy, quiet and back to our sweet little girl.  We usually get her back to sleep soon after the behavior stops and she tends to have a restful sleep the rest of the night.  We have videotaped the behavior and shown it to several doctors including her family doctor, 2 pediatric neurologists, an ENT, and we have had a sleep study (which came back completely normal).  Unfortunately, no one can tell us definitively what this behavior is, but several theories have been given including obstructive sleep apnea,  GERD, dreaming/night terrors/nightmares, seizure activity, or just a normal part of REM sleep.  However, none of these seem to fit the bill completely as 1) no physical obstruction has been found that would cause obstructive sleep apnea (e.g., enlarged adenoids or tonsils or some kind lesion) and apnea was not seen during the sleep study, 2) our daughter does exhibit mild reflux symptoms (i.e., occasional gagging, spitting up, choking) and we have tried prescription Prevacid, but this did not eliminate the behavior.  We actually took her off the medication thinking that perhaps the medication was causing the symptoms as one of it's rare side effect is abnormal dreaming (see #3)  3) for a while, we were thinking that maybe dreaming or night terrors were to blame secondary to the hysterical crying upon trying to wake her and the immediate restoration of happiness only after fully waking, but many doctors have said she is to young to have such dreams  4) an EEG has been done both on its own and during the sleep study which did not show any abnormalities that would suggest seizure activity and 5) all babies and adults go through REM sleep so, if it is simply a symptom of that, then why isn't this behavior more widely described?  Any information that can be given would be greatly appreciated as we have had so many sleepless night worrying about this and we are exhausted.  We and our doctors have seem to hit a brick wall as far as diagnosing this problem and we feel as though all we are left with is to "go home, manage it as best we can, and hope she grows out of it," but, as loving parents, that is very hard to do as all the "what ifs" come to our minds.  We feel that this website may be a ray of hope as last night I read 3 postings from parents that have experienced something similar with their children but no follow up was ever given.  I sent messages to these individuals to learn about their experiences; however, I'm not sure my efforts will be successful as these postings were written several years ago.  Does anyone have any other thoughts?  

[kathamaryn]

My 8.5 month old started doing this around 5 months. I mentioned it to her doctor and she said it's from dreaming.  It stopped again shortly after but now suddenly it's started again.  In the last week it's happened at least three 3 times.  I was finally able to catch it on camera and will be showing it to her doctor soon.  One thing I noticed is it happens during REM sleep and she is near impossible to wake up.  I can turn the lights on and pick her up and she doesn't even flinch.  It tends to last about 15 minutes with intervention.  I'm not sure how long it would go otherwise.

[Mommy70601]

My 7 1/2 month started doing this tonight I'm to scared to fall asleep I woke him up earlier because I started to panic but he just started playing and laughing like nothing was wrong with him. Is this just a phase babies go through?

[Nfostwr]

I have an 8 month old daughter who does the same thing. She just had one 20 minutes afo and its very scary not knowing what's going on. Would really like to know if anyone has found any answers.

[Fernane]

This just happened to my 11 month old for the first time. Scary! I woke him up and it continued for about 10 more min or so. I nursed him and it eventually stopped. I got online to look for clues and found this thread.

[theotherlinda]

Any updates on the condition from anyone on the thread?  I'd love to be able to find more information on this!

[violeskye]

Really wish someone had an update . My newborn has been doing this too awake asleep doesn't matter. It happens about 4 times in a 24 hour period where she takes a gasp of air. Seems mostly when she is asleep . My question is why are our doctors so incompetent to figure
out what the issue is. Anyway my daughter was born with a vascular loop which basically means one of the veins of the heart loops the opposite way and crosses her esophagus and can possibly cause breathing issues when asleep or eating. Not sure if this is what is happening but for all others you may want to have a 4d ultrasound of the heart as this was the only way to see this abnormality. Also this technology has only been around the past decade and when pregnant most doctors won't order the ultrasound unless they feel there may be complications with the pregnancy.