APNEA AND PERIODIC BREATHING IN BED-SHARING AND SOLITARY SLEEPING INFANTS

Mother-infant bed sharing, compared with the solitary sleeping conditi on, has recently been associated with several physiological and behavi oral effects. Because the physiological effects of bed sharing may als o include respiratory changes, we compared the incidence of central an d obstructive apneas and periodic breathing in bed-sharing and solitar y sleeping infants. Twenty routinely bed-sharing mother-infant pairs a nd fifteen routinely solitary sleeping pairs slept for 3 nights in a s leep laboratory. After an initial adaptation night, each pair spent 1 night bed sharing and 1 night in solitary sleep in random order. Apnea and periodic breathing were scored from polysomnographic recordings. The frequency of central apnea was significantly increased on the bed- sharing night, compared with the solitary night, regardless of routine sleeping arrangement. There were significantly fewer obstructive apne as on the bed-sharing night than on the solitary night, but only in ro utinely solitary sleeping infants. In both groups, there was a signifi cantly higher frequency of periodic breathing events on the bed-sharin g night than on the solitary night. These findings demonstrate that th e bed-sharing environment can have a significant impact on respiratory control in the infant. Evidence is also presented to suggest that rou tine bed sharing may result in subtle neurophysiological and/or develo pmental differences in infants.