What causes sleepwalking in children? Parents must know

The problem of sleepwalking in children worries parents. The reason for sleepwalking in children may be due to some psychological factors, such as psychological anxiety, developmental delay and genetic factors. This problem needs to be prevented and treated.

Sleepwalking is also called sleep walking. It is common in children after the age of 4. The characteristic is that in the first third of the night, the child sits up from sleep, opens his eyes, and walks around aimlessly. Sleepwalking may have the following four aspects:

1. Psychosocial factors: Sleepwalking in some children is related to psychosocial factors. For example, disrupted daily life, environmental pressure, anxiety and fear; family discord, poor parent-child relationship, study stress and poor test scores are all related to the occurrence of sleepwalking.

2. Sleeping too deeply Since sleepwalking often occurs in the first 1/3 of deep sleep, various factors that deepen sleep, such as excessive fatigue during the day, lack of sleep due to staying up late for several consecutive days, taking sleeping pills before bedtime, etc., can induce the occurrence of sleepwalking.

3. Genetic factors: Family surveys show that most sleepwalking patients have a positive family history, and the comorbidity rate of monozygotic twins is 6 times higher than that of dizygotic twins, indicating that the disease is related to genetic factors.

4. Developmental factors: Since the disease often occurs in childhood and gradually stops with age, it indicates that sleepwalking may be related to delayed development of the cerebral cortex.