Swallowing Apnea Complications in Children

For children who suffer from complications involving feeding or respiratory distress, there can be a significant reduction in the quality of life. For many children, the complications associated with congenital defect may lead to an inability to breathe when swallowing, a complication known as swallowing apnea.

Brain injury, attributed to a congenital defect, can have significant impact on the quality of life for a child. When complications involving swallowing apnea develop, the underlying cause an origin may be attributed to the brainstem and cerebral cortex. For this reason, when rehabilitating a child with this complication, the pediatric rehabilitation specialist will want to address issues that involve these specific areas of the brain.

Assessment of your child's brain wave activity will be a key component of rehabilitation and in resolving complications of respiration and breathing during feeding. With brain wave activity studies, in addition to functional MRI, your child's arousal states can be examined during feeding. In addition, swallow testing will also be carefully studies to determine what, if any, functional or anatomical complications exist.

In many cases, children with congenital brain complications have difficult with breathing and simultaneously swallowing due to no other complication than that of impaired cognitive processing. While eating and breathing are generally activities we perform on a subconscious level, the child who can not coordinate this activity often experiences issues with gasping for air during feeding which, ultimately, leads to a more heightened state of arousal. It is the management of the heightened arousal that will be important, followed by therapy that will enhance or improve the coordination of breathing and swallowing.