Abstract
Periodic breathing is a common pattern of respiration in premature infants. Home cardiorespiratory monitoring of premature infants with periodic breathing has been advocated to detect and prevent associated episodes of prolonged apnea. Since periodic breathing is thought to be related to maturity of the respiratory control center one might expect that percent of periodic breathing would decrease with increasing gestational age. The purpose of this study was to define the mean percent of periodic breathing per gestational age in premature infants. Pneumograms from 153 premature infants were reviewed. Infants were studied for suspected clincal apnea and/or bradycardia. All infants were studied prior to starting theophylline. Percent periodicity of breathing was obtained from the tracings by calculating the time of periodic breathing/sleep time. Periodic breathing was defined as three or more apneic pauses of greater than 3 seconds but less than 10 seconds within periods of normal respiration of 20 seconds or less.
The above data indicate that there is no correlation with gestational age, specifically there is no trend of decreasing periodicity with increasing gestational age. We conclude that gestational age in preterm infants is not predictive of the percentage of periodic breathing.
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Stefano, J., Spitzer, A., Davis, J. et al. 1841 DEGREE OF PERIODIC BREATHING PER GESTATIONAL AGE: IS THERE A CORRELATION?. Pediatr Res 19, 417 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198504000-01859
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1203/00006450-198504000-01859