Don't Scare Your Mother!

Molly stopped breathing. 

Do you feel the weight of how scary that is????

Molly is now up often at night to nurse and snuggle. Due to her reflux, I usually hold her inclined on my bent knees after nursing her at night and I started to notice that she would pause in her breathing as she slept on my knees during those times. So I borrowed a breathing and movement monitor from a friend and the first night we used it, it went off. In order to make the monitor siren go off, the breathing needs to pause for at least 20 seconds. When I shot out of bed and reached to her in the pack n' play next to our bed, sirens still sounding loudly, she was motionless. I shook her in a panic and she simple resumed breathing. She did not wake. Did not cry. Did not even gasp. Just resumed. I cried for hours...

The next morning, I called the pediatrician as soon as the office opened. We had an appointment early and he seemed very confused because she was much older than a typical child who suffers an apnea event. He discussed its relation to reflux and focused mostly on that, but I got extremely frustrated. I could care less if she is spitting up...SHE STOPPED BREATHING! let's focus on that!

So the infant apnea program at our hospital called and set us up with an appointment. They brought over a breathing and heart rate monitor (shown above) and Molly wore it 24/7 for two full weeks. It tracked her breathing and her heart rate. The first night she wore it, it went off 8 times indicating pauses in breathing that frequently....

It was bulky and LOUD, but gave me great peace of mind in those two weeks because I started to get paranoid that she would stop breathing when sleeping in the car or in the swing and how would I know? This monitor went everywhere with us so I could always be vigilant.

After two weeks, we brought her to the infant apnea program and the data was reviewed. It seemed that she was in full control of her breathing and that it was, in fact, most likely related to her reflux. So in other words, the sneaky child would feel a burp and hold her breath until it passed, even in her sleep...

SCARE THE HELL OUT OF YOUR MOTHER!!!