Respiration during the First Six Months of Life in Normal Infants. III. Computer Identification of Breathing Pauses

Abstract

Summary: The first objective of this study was to quantify computer-identified breathing pauses in excess of two sec duration in relation to sleep states. The second objective was to examine which respiratory variables at one wk and one month of age predicted total apnea at 2 and 3 months of age. Short apnea (2 to 5 sec) were abundant in recordings of normal infants during the first one-half year of life. Apnea between 6 and 9 sec should be considered normal, whereas apnea in excess of 9 sec occurred most frequently in the first wk of life and declined sharply thereafter. Recording duration substantially affected apnea counts. Apnea at later ages could not be reliably predicted from recordings during the first wk of life. Speculation: Short breathing pauses in QS during the age span under investigation are probably inversely related to breathing rate and caused by the same mechanism responsible for the decline in rate. The change in breathing pauses over age in AS can probably be accounted for by two sources of variance, first, the decline in rate and second, rate-independent developmental changes in control of ventilation during AS.