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Side-to-side body rocking appears to decrease the number of obstructive sleep apneas in infants. Apnea is a temporary cessation of breathing. Of 18 premature and full-term infants with repeated episodes of apnea, 16 showed a reduction in sleep apnea events. An inflated mattress rocked at a speed of 13 cycles per minute was used. Polygraphs recorded movements, oxygen saturation and airflow. Seven of eight preterm infants improved, while nine of 10 full-term infants improved. The number of sleep apnea events were cut by 50%. No significant changes were noted in rapid eye movement sleep, wakefulness, basal heart rates, oxygen saturation, or drops in heart rate. The rocking apparently prevents closure of airways by stimulating the diaphragm and upper-airway muscles, and activating autonomic discharges., ABSTRACT. Objective. To investigate the effect of body rocking on infant respiratory behavior during sleep. Methods. Eighteen infants with documented obstructive sleep apneas were studied. There were eight premature infants with persistent bradycardias and 10 infants born full-term, admitted after an idiopathic apparent life-threatening event. No cause for the obstructive apneas was found. The infants were recorded with polygraphic techniques during two successive nights. They were ran-domly assigned to a rocking or a nonrocking mattress. The conditions were reversed the following night, in a crossover design. Results. In both groups of infants, no significant difference was seen between the two consecutive nights for most of the variables studied: total sleep time, the proportion of non--rapid-eye-movement and rapid-eye-movement sleep, the number of arousals, the number and maximal duration of central apneas, the frequency of periodic breathing, the level of oxygen saturation, and heart rate. During the nonrocking nights, all infants had repeated obstructive breathing events. In seven of the eight preterm infants and in nine of the 10 full-term subjects, body rocking was associated with a significant decrease in the frequency of obstructive events. During rocking, in the preterm infants the obstructions fell from a median of 2.5 to 1.8 episodes per hour (P = .034). In the full-term infants, rocking reduced the obstructive events from a median of 1.5 obstructions per hour to 0.7 (P = .005). No difference was seen for the duration of the obstructive episodes. Conclusion. In preterm and full-term infants prone to obstructive sleep apneas, gentle side-to-side body rocking is associated with a significant decrease in the frequency of upper-airway obstructions. Pediatrics 1995; 96:64--68; body rocking, apnea, obstructive apnea, sudden infant death, sleep., ABBREVIATIONS. ALTE, apparent life-threatening event; SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome; REM, rapid eye movement; NREM, nonrapid eye movement. Airway obstructions, in the form of obstructive and mixed sleep apneas, have [...]

Infants may sleep better in the prone body position than in the supine body position. Prone is lying face downward and supine is lying with the face upward. Among 68 healthy infants between four and 34 weeks old, 34 usually slept prone and 34 usually slept supine. They were monitored for one night in a sleep laboratory. The infants fell asleep in their usual body position and were turned from one position to the other at three-hour intervals during the night. Both groups of infants slept longer and had longer periods of non-rapid eye movement sleep in the prone body position than in the supine body position. The infants were also less likely to awake in the prone body position, and they awoke for shorter periods of time., Objective. To evaluate the potential relation between body position and sleep characteristics in normal infants. Patients. Two groups of 3-month-old healthy infants were evaluated: 40 infants who usually slept supine, and 40 who usually slept prone. The two groups were matched for gender, gestational age, postnatal age, birth weight, and total recording time. Recording techniques. The 80 infants were studied polygraphically during one night in the pediatric sleep laboratory. They were allowed to fall asleep in their usual sleep position, and every 3 hours were gently turned from prone to supine, or from supine to prone. Results. In each group, 6 infants were excluded from the analysis, because they woke up after having been turned over. In both groups, no significant difference was seen between the prone and the supine body positions for the following variables: number of sleep state changes; number of gross body movements; percent of rapid eye movement sleep; saturation with oxygen, arterial blood levels; number and duration of acid esophageal reflux; rectal temperature; mean respiratory rates; water evaporation rates from the forehead skin; and number or duration of central or of obstructive apneas. In both groups of infants, prone body position was associated with a significant increase in sleep duration (+16%) and in non-rapid eye movement sleep (+25%) and a significant decrease in number of arousals (-40%) and in their duration (-43%). Conclusions. No explanation has been found for the sleep-promoting effect of prone body positioning. The finding could be of interest to the study of infants' sleep quality, as well as to the potential relation between body positions and sudden death during sleep. Pediatrics 1993; 91:1112-1115; sleep, infant, body position, apnea, sudden infant death.

Infants who became victims of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) aroused less from sleep than control infants. This study was conducted to determine the characteristics of arousal from sleep of infants who eventually died of SIDS. Sixteen infants were monitored some days or weeks before they died of SIDS. Their polygraphic sleep recordings were compared with those of matched control infants. Arousals were scored as subcortical activation (incomplete arousals) or cortical arousal (complete arousals). Cortical arousals were significantly less frequent in the victims who would succumb to SIDS in the future than in the control infants during both REM and non-REM sleep (p = 0.039). The frequency (p = 0.017) and duration (p = 0.005) of subcortical activation were significantly greater in the infants who died of SIDS than in the control infants during REM sleep. Compared with the control infants, the infants who later died of SIDS had more frequent subcortical activation in the first part of the night, between 9:00 P.M. and 12:00 A.M. (p = 0.038), and fewer cortical arousals during the latter part of the night, between 3:00 and 6:00 A.M. (p = 0.011). The present data are suggestive of incomplete arousal processes in infants who eventually died at a time they were presumed to have been asleep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]