What should I do if my baby always likes to hold his breath?

Having a new baby in the family is a very happy thing. We must always pay attention to the baby's health and physical safety. Many newborns will experience breath holding within 2 to 20 days after birth, which makes some mothers anxious. Holding your breath for a long time will cause hypoxia in the body. If the hypoxia lasts too long, it may be life-threatening. Therefore, mothers must pay attention to this issue. Here, the editor will answer for you the problem of how to solve the problem that your baby always likes to hold his breath.

Newborns often experience sudden breath holding within 2 to 20 days after birth. Especially premature babies or small-sized full-term babies. The main symptoms are sudden respiratory arrest, purple face, and weak limbs. If you hold your breath for more than 15 to 30 seconds, it is medically known as "sleep apnea".

The main reason is that the newborn's brain is immature, and when it encounters cold stimulation or suffers from diseases such as pneumonia, it may hold its breath. When you hold your breath, the exchange of blood and oxygen in the lungs stops, causing hypoxia in the body. If the hypoxia lasts too long, it may be life-threatening. Therefore, once this phenomenon is discovered, if there is no medical staff present, parents should immediately adopt artificial assisted respiration (place your hands on the child's back, then gently support or put the child down or pat the child's feet at a frequency of about 40 times per minute to stimulate breathing, and pay attention to keeping the room temperature at 26℃~28℃. If there is still no improvement after the above treatment or the phenomenon of shortness of breath occurs frequently, the child should be sent to the hospital for treatment immediately.

Parents do not need to panic when the child suffers from breath holding attack: it is best to lay the child flat on the bed, unbutton the collar, and keep the airway open; blow gently on the baby's face to reduce brain hypoxia; pat the soles of the feet or back; pinch and press the child's Ren Zhong (the center between the nostrils and the upper lip), Yin Tang (the center of the eyebrows), He Gu (the base of the palms) and other acupoints with your fingers to help the child recover as soon as possible; you can also press the chest to quickly improve hypoxia and help restore breathing.

Avoid hugging your child tightly or forcing him or her into a ball, especially around the neck, to avoid the serious consequence of suffocation. In recent years, some scholars have suggested that breath-holding attacks in infants and young children are related to iron deficiency. Clinical tests and control studies found that most children with breath-holding attacks were iron deficient, and after 1-3 months of iron supplementation, the breath-holding attacks completely stopped or the frequency of attacks was significantly reduced, and serum iron indicators returned to normal. Therefore, children who suffer from frequent breath-holding attacks can go to the hospital to receive guidance from a specialist and, if necessary, take iron supplements or receive related treatments.

The above is the solution I found to the problem of baby holding breath. In fact, every baby may have the possibility of holding his breath as he grows up, but if it is not taken seriously, it may even be life-threatening. As parents, we must pay attention to this issue. In order for the baby to grow up healthily, the editor hopes that parents can use their spare time to care for their children so that they can grow up happily.