It is a disease that we tend to believe is reserved for adults.

However, sleep apnea affects between 2 and 5% of children according to most studies.

And sometimes more, underlined the pulmonologist-allergist Madiha Ellaffi during a webinar organized on the occasion of the 22nd National Sleep Day, March 18.

It is therefore less than in adults, for whom the percentage rises to 8% for 20-44 year olds, according to Inserm data, and more for the oldest.

But for this doctor from Albi, co-founder of the Ideas association which promotes the care of young patients, sleep apnea “concerns at least one in twenty children”, a proportion 100 times higher than that of so-called rare diseases.

“A child who snores is not normal”

Nocturnal snoring, a clinical sign of a possible obstructive sleep syndrome, is insufficiently taken into account according to specialists, while a recent survey by the OpinionWay institute, carried out among a thousand parents, revealed a population 6% of snoring children.

"Often I hear people say: 'Hey, he snores like his grandfather'... No, a child who snores is not normal," says Patricia Franco, head of the pediatric sleep unit at the hospital. Woman Mother Child (HFME) from Bron, near Lyon.

There may be occasional discomfort – a stuffy nose for example.

"But if the child snores every night, in a prolonged and intense way, you have to think about sleep apnea", insists the doctor, for whom "this message does not pass enough in the families".

Impaired psychomotor development of the child

Often unsuspected in children, this pathology is very damaging, points out André Stagnara, rehabilitation manager at La Maisonnée, a pediatric follow-up care establishment located in Francheville (Rhône).

"It is during paradoxical sleep (dream) that we record the learning of the day: the micro-awakenings associated with low oxygenation will alter the psychomotor development of the child", summarizes the practitioner.

“You can't imagine the lost potential”.

Besides snoring, restless nights, difficulty waking up, dark circles in the eyes, pale complexion, fatigue during the day, lack of attention at school, hyperactivity or irascibility are other signs and disorders, in the child, which must encourage the parents to consult, plead the specialists.

Lack of infrastructure for diagnostics

Nose drops or anti-allergy treatment, removal of tonsils or hypertrophied adenoids, oro-maxillo-facial physiotherapy to reposition the tongue, nasal septum surgery or orthodontics, “continuous positive pressure” breathing apparatus… Responses to apnea of sleep, more or less heavy, vary depending on the case.

It is still necessary to have access to the diagnosis.

Two children's sleep units, each with three registration beds, exist in France: in Paris (Robert-Debré hospital) and in Bron (HFME), where the waiting time reaches "easily a year", says Patricia Frank.

Services like La Maisonnée also manage recordings, but they are "totally insufficient in number", it is pointed out.

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