The Importance of Sleep Quality in Children

I want you to think of a very basic body function. Ask yourself, “How does my child sleep?” As a parent, I spend so much time controlling my kids’ waking hours. I stress over diet, school curriculum and environmental toxins … and I had been ignoring the half of their lives that they spend sleeping.

    For example, I know that my 4-year-old is difficult to wake up, tosses and turns at night, and snores. He still wets the bed, and sometimes he has dark circles under his eyes. I wake frequently listening to him talk in his sleep and hear him grinding his teeth. I also have a 2-year-old who sucks his thumb. I had been thinking both kids would just “grow out of it.” As a dentist, I had been telling parents of kids like mine to wait until the kids are old enough to convince, or until there is a risk of teeth being crooked. 

    Lots of parents find comfort when other children seem similar to theirs. Snoring, tooth grinding, chronic throat infections, adenoids and tonsils removed, ear tubes, thumb sucking—these are all common. Many parents think it’s cute to see their kid fall asleep in the car with his or her mouth open. Many parents notice that their children have crowded teeth and just think, “I know my kid will need braces.”

    But what if these are actually signs of poor sleep quality? How do these children feel when they are awake? Tired? Fidgety? Could it be possible that any of our children’s developmental and/or behavioral problems are related to their quality of sleep? The research supports that it could be. In the largest study of its kind, following more than 11,000 children over six years and published in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that:

    “[C]hildren with sleep-disordered breathing were from 40 to 100 percent more likely to develop neurobehavioral problems by age 7, compared with children without breathing problems. ... The biggest increase was in hyperactivity, but we saw significant increases across all five behavioral measures.”

    Sleep-disordered breathing was also correlated with increased rates of emotional symptoms, such as anxiety and depression, and behavioral problems, such as aggressiveness and rule-breaking. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 10.2 percent of children in the U.S. aged 5 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD (attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Could sleep-disordered breathing be a cause?

    The traits listed above (snoring, restless sleep, bed-wetting, etc.) and many more have been associated as symptoms of sleep-disordered breathing in children. What is even scarier is that 10 percent of children suffer from sleep-disordered breathing. 

    We shouldn’t be finding comfort in the fact that our stories are so familiar. 

    There are many causes of sleep-disordered breathing, including facial and jaw structure, allergies and poor oral habits. 

    As a parent and healthcare provider who cares about this epidemic, I want all parents to fill out a sleep questionnaire like the one available on Healthy Start’s website: TheHealthyStart.com. Parents, healthcare providers, teachers and other caregivers need to recognize the symptoms as early as possible. Treatments include diet changes; allergy identification/treatment; tonsil and adenoid removal; release of frenum pulls; and appliances, such as those available from Healthy Start. The different appliances available focus on stopping bad habits, opening up airways, and allowing normal growth and development of the jaws and teeth, and are used alone or with other treatments. Together, we can help our children have their happiest days and nights. 

    Dr. Joanna S. Dover is the principal dentist at Columbia Children’s Dentistry and Forest Drive Dental Care, 3731 Forest Dr., Columbia. Dr. Dover offers Healthy Start information and treatment at her practice. She also releases frenums and works with other medical professionals to address sleep-disordered breathing in children and adults.