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Layne Melzer awoke around 8 a.m. Jan. 6 and looked at his 6-week-old son, Shane, beside him. Most mornings, it was the baby who roused him at dawn with lusty yells for food, so Melzer was surprised to find Shane still asleep. Then he took a closer look. Shane’s skin was dusky, and he did not seem to be breathing. Melzer jiggled him tentatively, but the baby did not rouse. His color was darker now. Bluish.
Yelling to his wife to call 911, Melzer grabbed Shane and shook him — hard this time. The baby’s eyes opened at one point, but his gaze was blank.
Frantically trying to recall resuscitation techniques, Melzer put his mouth over Shane’s and puffed twice. Then he turned the baby over and slapped him on the back. He slapped him again, and then a third time. Suddenly Shane gulped for air and began to cry. A moment later, the rescue squad arrived.
The crisis, though, was far from over. By noon, Shane was admitted to Childrens Hospital of Orange County with a tentative diagnosis of severe apnea.
The term apnea comes from the Latin words a and pneuma, which means without air. Medically, it refers to pauses in breathing.
The main consequence of apnea is damage to the brain and heart because of repeated periods of inadequate oxygen. A baby with untreated apnea can, in later years, exhibit learning and behavioral problems, even cerebral palsy, associated with brain damage.
Shane Melzer’s problem was central apnea, exacerbated by a viral infection.
Shane’s breathing pauses were found to be frequent, long and responsible for repeated episodes of bradycardia — the medical term for an abnormally slow heart rate. He met all the criteria for a diagnosis of severe apnea. Two days after being admitted to CHOC, he was transferred to the intensive care unit.
He just got worse. At 3:30 the morning following his transfer, the Melzers were awakened by a call from a doctor in the unit. Shane’s apnea was so bad that he now required the assistance of a respirator to survive, the doctor told them. But Shane was fortunate to be in a hospital with expertise in the treatment of apnea.
Shane’s apnea has caused no more trouble. His breathing pauses have never been severe enough to trigger the monitor, his parents report, and in every other respect, he is thriving.
Are SIDS And Sleep Apnea Related?
A study suggests that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) might be more common in families that suffer from the adult sleeping disorder sleep apnea
Though the cause of SIDS remains mysterious, new evidence supports the idea that both disorders are caused by a narrowed upper airway resulting from the way the skull is formed, a characteristic that is inherited.
The study compared the number of SIDS cases in 29 families with sleep apnea and 35 families without sleep apnea. Researchers had families fill out questionnaires about the incidence of infant death. Subjects provided data from four generations of each family so that 352 sleep apnea family members and 408 control family members were covered.
The families prone to sleep apnea — in which breathing stops for short periods during sleep and can lead to snoring or disturbed sleep — reported eight unexplained infant deaths. The control families reported no unexplained, unexpected infant deaths, although one infant had died of mother-child blood-type incompatibility. Two of the sleep apnea families reported more than one SIDS death. In one case, a pair of twins had died without explanation. When researchers examined the facial structure of four of the six families that reported SIDS death, they found the shapes were significantly different from the normal families.
The results suggest that SIDS and adult sleep apnea are associated and that both could result from obstructive apnea due to facial structure narrowing the upper airway.
Sleep apnea runs in families. Other work has suggested that certain families may be at higher risk for SIDS, although like most things about SIDS, this remains debated. It is a thorny issue. The idea has been that sleep apnea may be the final common pathway of SIDS, but not necessarily the cause. The problem with SIDS research is that no one has ever witnessed a SIDS death.
In children who often appear tired or have trouble staying awake in school, check for potential obstructive apnea caused by abnormally large adenoids or tonsils.
Another study that found that babies considered at high risk of SIDS — those who had stopped breathing and were by chance found and resuscitated — had a higher chance of having a father with sleep apnea-like symptoms. This could support the idea that sleep apnea is related to SIDS. But how they are related and whether it is causative is another question.

A sleep lab patient, Pasadena resident William H. Chapman, was tested after his wife wrote his doctor to express concern about his restless sleep. Chapman, 61, has been a heavy snorer for decades.
“The descriptions of my snoring went from something like a growling bear to a machine that was going to knock down the house,” he said. When he and his son went camping in southern Utah last year, his son asked him to sleep in the truck.
He felt bone-tired during the day, what he describes as “30 years struggling against this weariness that you feel perpetually. No alertness. No get-up-and-go.”
Finally, Chapman spent a night at Torrance Memorial, plugged into the polysomnograph. The test results were startling: He was holding his breath as many as 57 times an hour, each time for 10 to 40 seconds. He would wake repeatedly as he held his breath, meaning that he unknowingly was sleeping only four or five hours a night.
A federal report concluded that while 60 million Americans suffer from apnea, narcolepsy and other chronic sleep problems, the majority are undiagnosed and untreated. Despite its pervasiveness and impact upon the society, sleep-related problems are not recognized as a public health issue.
The most common and severe form, called obstructive sleep apnea, features extremely loud snoring interrupted by pauses and gasps. Breathing stops for 10 seconds or longer, sometimes dozens or even hundreds of times each night.
Most frequently, the airway becomes blocked during sleep due to excessive relaxation of throat muscles. In children, sleep apnea is often the result of enlarged tonsils and adenoids.
People with sleep apnea may show signs of anxiety, depression, irritability, forgetfulness and fatigue during the day. Recent studies have found that sleep apnea sufferers have two to five times as many automobile accidents as people in the general population.
Treatment includes weight reduction (most people with severe sleep apnea are overweight); avoiding alcohol within two hours of bedtime and sleeping drugs; surgery to remove excess tissue at the back of the throat or enlarged tonsils and adenoids; use of a special mask that improves flow of air through nasal passages.
Undergoing surgery or sleeping with a mask clamped to your face may seem like extreme measures just to silence snoring. But if you have sleep apnea, those treatments could save your life.
As awareness of apnea mounts, suspected sufferers are spending their nights under an infrared camera’s watchful eye in hundreds of so-called “sleep labs” across America, sensors dotting their skin and scalp.
Eleven o’clock is “lights out.” At 11:02 sharp, Navarro yawns. A needle swings wildly on a monitor humming softly in the next room. At 11:10 p.m., Navarro turns onto his left side, and a half-dozen needles jerk in response.
This night will be like no other for Navarro, a 32-year-old computer programmer. For the next seven hours, his every breath, movement and heartbeat will be recorded as he spends the night in a sleep disorders laboratory.
He is here because doctors think he suffers from sleep apnea, a disorder marked by loud snoring and interrupted breathing. Once considered relatively obscure, sleep apnea is stirring increased concern among physicians because it can cause severe daytime fatigue, high blood pressure, stroke and heart problems; serious cases can be life-threatening.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that sleep apnea is more common than once believed. The study found that 9% of women and 24% of men had sleep-disordered breathing; 2% of women and 4% of men in the middle-aged work force met the criteria for sleep apnea. That would make undiagnosed sleep apnea a major public health burden.
Depending on the severity of the apnea, treatment can include use of a night time face mask or even surgery. There’s a less high-tech approach for those who snore or suffer apnea only while on their backs: sewing a tennis ball in the back of their pajamas tops so they will sleep on their sides instead.
Not surprisingly, roommates and spouses are often the first to spot potential apnea victims. Navarro is a longtime snorer; he can remember his college roommates waking him to request that he tone it down. His wife, Christine, grew worried when she noticed that he sometimes stopped breathing briefly during the night. She learned about sleep apnea from her doctor and urged her husband to get tested.
A video screen shows Navarro dozing peacefully. Pink computer paper moves steadily through the polysomnograph, a machine with 12 needles that records everything from his eye movements to heart contractions.
All night, monitors will record the needles’ black tracks, paying special attention to those measuring Navarro’s breathing. Sleep apnea victims have been known to stop breathing hundreds of times each night.

Have you been diagnosed with sleep apnea? Your doctor could prescribe one of two types of sleep apnea machines for your sleeping disorder, a CPAP or BiPap machine. Which one do you believe is the best? The CPAP has been a lifesaver, literally. Keeping airways open so those who have sleep apnea can sleep without the dangers of not breathing.The Differences Between the CPAP and the BiPAPThe CPAP machine is designed to increase the pressure when you inhale to keep the airways in the nose, throat and mouth from closing while you are sleeping. This has been a great help to many people who suffer from sleep apnea and may stop breathing several times a night.On the other hand, the BiPAP machine may help as well. Using the same setup as a CPAP with tubing, masks and a machine, the BiPAP uses a different setting. The CPAP uses one pressure and the BiPAP uses two. These two pressures are called inhalation pressure (IPAP) and the exhalation pressure (EPAP).Where the CPAP works as the person using it inhales, the BiPAP provides more breathing assistance. They have been prescribed for patients who have congestive heart failure and other serious diseases affecting the heart and lungs. People with nerve and muscle problems may also benefit from the BiPAP machine rather than the CPAP machine.The BiPAP is preset with two settings. The pressure when inhaling and exhaling is monitored. When the person sleeping does not breathe for a certain mount of time, the BiPAP increases pressure and forces them to take a breath. There are higher level CPAP machines that do this as well. These machines need a BPM (breathes per minute) setting that is targeted to your particular breathing needs.Both machines are designed to make sure the users breathe a set number of times per minute. One of the main benefits of the BiPAP machine is the pressure is decreased as the person breathes out. This keeps them from having to work as hard at breathing and the person is able to have a more restful sleep.The BiPAP machine is not large or noisy. They are designed to make the least amount of noise possible so you can sleep. The inclusion of a humidifier may be included with the BiPAP making it a higher end machine than the CPAP.The main difference between these two machines will be the needs of the patient. The one that will help each individual with the specific breathing problems they have will be based on doctor’s examinations and recommendations. A sleep test will be conducted to allow the doctor to see exactly what settings are needed on the type of machine required.The CPAP machine will be used for mild sleep apnea. Make no mistake, this can be a dangerous condition. It just depends on the levels of sleep apnea to govern the needed machine. Both machines are quite beneficial and are crucial to keeping sleepers breathing when they have problems.In conclusion, remember, the sleep apnea machines are not designed to be used as ventilators. They do not breathe for you. They merely make sure you take the number of breaths per minute that your doctor believes is right for you. After doing tests to determine what the correct number may be, the doctor will advise you as to which machine he thinks you need.