Sleep apnea is a progressive sleeping disorder which both adults and children can suffer from. During sleep an ‘apneic’ will stop breathing for what may be seconds or even a couple of minutes. A person is started breathing again as the brain recognises it is been starved of oxygen so wakes a person from deep sleep whereupon breathing starts again. There are two very different reasons why this happens, hence the two different types of sleep apnea:

Central Sleep Apnea is the least common form of sleep apnea and the problem is with malfunctioning neurological signals been passed from the brain to the lungs. Breathing is automatically controlled by the brain as an involuntary movement. The brain knows how much oxygen the system has, and when it needs more, and needs to expel the waste carbon dioxide from our system, it instructs the lungs to breath. For some reason, in Central Sleep Apnea sufferers, this can fail from time to time, causing a person to cease breathing until the brain awakes the person to start breathing again.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea accounts for most cases of sleep apnea, and is caused by physical ‘obstructions’ within the airways during sleep. Obstructions can be anything from enlarged adenoids and tonsils, to inflammation and swelling, fat tissues, the tongue blocking the airways or less commonly tumours, growths or naturally narrow airways.

Whilst the above two types of sleep apnea are the only true kinds of sleep apnea, a person who suffers from both is often put into a third category called Mixed Sleep Apnea (MSA).

Central sleep apnea is a common form of sleep apnea in children born prematurely. It may take a while for the correct breathing capacity within the brain to develop, and a premature baby may be required to sleep with ventilation equipment for a while.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea is the most common form of sleep apnea in children from the age of two onwards. Symptoms during sleep tend to be snoring, wheezing, and gasping for breath and generally restlessness during sleep. Obstructive Sleep Apnea is often caused by obesity, and can be a cause of obesity itself.

General symptoms of sleep apnea in children are tiredness, lethargy and irritability. A child with sleep apnea is also highly likely to exhibit cognitive or behavioural issues due to lack of sleep frustrating the child.

Sleep apnea is also linked to bedwetting in children, so this may be yet another clue that your child may be suffering from sleep apnea.

For more information on sleep apnea visit http://www.sleep-apnea.org.uk

Lactose intolerance is the term given to the body’s varying degrees of inefficiency in the digestion of lactose. Inside the small intestine an enzyme called ‘lactase’ is produced, and it is this enzyme which is needed to digest lactose. For reasons which shall be explained in a moment, when lactase is in short supply within the small intestine, and the levels of lactose input overwhelm the levels of lactase, there can be symptoms of lactose intolerance which result. Symptoms of lactose intolerance in infants and adults can be stomach complaints, stomach cramp and diarrhoea – perhaps even nausea.

Whilst lactose intolerance is one of the most widespread complaints suffered among adults, lactose intolerance in infants tends to be much rarer. A reason of genetic evolution exists for this. In most cases, when we are in our infancy, our body’s levels of lactase production are at their highest. This is because babies are weaned on breast milk (which also contains lactose, as does all milk) therefore a baby can tolerate a high amount of lactose.

When the breastfeeding period is over, levels of lactase production begin to drop significantly in most people. This occurs around the age of 2 to 5 years. Before humans begin to domesticate animals such as cows and drink their milk, for the vast time of human history milk has never been drunk beyond weaning as part of a staple diet as it is now.

This may sound like drinking milk is hammering a square peg into a round hole, especially for those most affected by the toil of lactose intolerance, but there are many solutions to this problem. By far the best solution is to replace any products which are regular dairy products with a lactose free variety. Remember, there are many different brands, and you may need to try out a good few before you find which the best are.

The most obvious ways of discovering if an infant is lactose intolerant is by checking stools, but also heeding any complaints or cries which may indicate distress being caused by lactose intolerance.