According to the Pediatric Health Care Alliance, 10 to 20 percent of all healthy children snore during sleep. Snoring is not always indicative of an underlying health concern. However, symptoms of gasping for air, restlessness and bedwetting may indicate an underlying illness. Snoring is the physical manifestation of an obstruction to the child's airflow; the causes should be explored and treated.
Soft Snores
Gentle snoring in the absence of any concomitant symptoms may be normal, the Pediatric Health Care Alliance notes. During childhood development the tongue and throat muscles are not fully mature and relax easily. When the musculature relaxes, the throat narrows, which will cause snoring or vibrating noise with breathing. If a child is snoring after receiving medicine or after a long day, this may be a normal result of a relaxed throat.
Stuffy Noses
Children who are sick or have hay fever, or allergies, often get stuffy noses. The inability to draw air in through the nose causes children to mouth-breath. Breathing through the mouth will cause suction in the back of the throat, resulting in snoring. Commonly children with tonsillitis snore due to the constriction of the throat structures generated by swollen tonsils. Annually, more than 260,000 children get tonsillectomies to remove these swollen adenoids according to Sleep For Kids, a service of the National Sleep Foundation.
Gasping and Bedwetting
According to the American College of Chest Physicians, regardless of age, bedwetting is a serious symptom of snoring. Bedwetting, gasping for breaths, restless sleeping and daytime crankiness are all snoring symptoms that may indicate a serious condition called obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA. While the child is sleeping, a deformity of the throat causes it to cave in and obstruct breathing for seconds at a time. This obstruction leads to snoring, relieved by gasping breaths after small pauses in breathing. OSA is diagnosed by a sleep specialist and requires medical treatment.
