Another sleepless night

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JIM: There's no doubt that if a child snores, it's real bad for them. It's bad. It's like having a plug in your throat that is stopping the air from getting in.

MAN: It was, you know, quite shocking, when we found out he was waking up 500 times a night.

WOMAN: Like, it's almost every minute that he will stop breathing.

JIM: It affects on behaviour, learning, so most kids will have trouble with their concentration. You can expect around a 10-point decrease in IQ.

KERRI-ANNE: Meet 4-year-old Geordie Brown. His sleep story is a beauty. He likes to help Mum in the kitchen...likes cheese sandwiches...likes to see Dad when he comes home...and likes a bedtime story. But one thing he doesn't like, one thing he's dead set scared of...is going to sleep...because when Geordie sleeps, he snores and between the snores, he stops breathing.

JEN: He's a gorgeous little boy - as any mother would say that - but, um, he's... He's a really beautiful personality but he's obviously not been sleeping - ha! - for his whole life.

KERRI-ANNE: For Jen and Johnson Brown, one of the signs something wasn't right was that Geordie never, ever slept like a baby.

JEN: I kept a sleep diary when he was three months old till probably nine months old because he would sleep 20 minutes and wake up screaming and there was just nothing we could do. I tried Baby Mozart, I tried every sort of technique available for a child
that has trouble going to sleep and he just did not want to go to sleep, full stop.

JOHNSON: You just think, "That's pretty normal," because everyone's got a story of, you know, children waking up and whatever so it's, you know, you have nothing to gauge it against.

KERRI-ANNE: But Geordie's lack of sleep was taking its toll. He took longer to learn to talk than other kids his age. Then, there was his class photo from preschool.

JEN: My first thought when I got the preschool photos back, I just looked and "Oh, my goodness! My poor little bubba." All I can see is the bags under his eyes, like, they're just so dark and he just looks tired.

KERRI-ANNE: It would be months before they'd find out why going to sleep scared Geordie so much. I want to go for a drive, Daddy.

JOHNSON: Oh, you want to go for a drive? Why is that?

KERRI-ANNE: Things got so bad that the only way to get Geordie to sleep was to get in the car. Jen and Johnson felt very alone. Sleep deprived themselves, they got little help and fewer answers from doctor after doctor. It wasn't until they were referred to one of Australia's leading child sleep specialists that they discovered what damage sleep deprivation was doing to Geordie.

JIM: You can expect around about a 10-point decrease in intelligence quotient, or IQ, as it's known...

KERRI-ANNE: Wow!

JIM: ..so it's really quite a serious reduction in your ability to learn.

KERRI-ANNE: And that's just the beginning. Paediatrician Dr Jim Papadopoulos and his team at St George Private Hospital in Sydney test and treat children who aren't getting enough sleep. And what they're discovering will jolt you wide awake.

JIM: Babies, it affects their development, it can slow them down so that they don't smile at the right time and don't roll at the right time.

KERRI-ANNE: Some of the patients are only a few weeks old when they arrive. What they all have in common is snoring.

JIM: When you ask, "When did this child start snoring?" usually, it's from the age of around two. Occasionally, it can happen from infancy so when should you treat it? As soon as you know.

KERRI-ANNE: Here's why. This is what a healthy airway looks and sounds like in a normal sleeping person. And this is what happens in the airway of someone who snores. It begins closing up, reducing the amount of oxygen reaching the lungs, the bloodstream and the brain. At times, no air gets through at all.

JIM: A lack of oxygen can damage your brain and your body.

KERRI-ANNE: Yet most parents think snoring is a sign their child is in a deep sleep.

JOHNSON: You go and check on them, you if hear snoring or they're still asleep, it's like, "Well, that's, ah, you know, we are doing well."

KERRI-ANNE: This is Luke Small. He was two years old when doctors recorded him snoring in this sleep study. This is actually how he sounds. From the day he left hospital, Luke was snoring.

MICHAEL: As soon as he came home and was in the same room as us, he was loud. And we knew then that, "OK, is this right?"

KERRI-ANNE: So, how loud?

MICHAEL: Loud like... (IMITATES SNORING) ..like, really loud.

(SNORES)

KERRI-ANNE: When he was a few weeks old, Dr Jim diagnosed Luke with a condition called obstructive sleep apnoea. Half of all children who snore have it.

JIM: Obstructive sleep apnoea is where someone is making an effort to breathe at night and in their sleep but they're unable to get enough air through with each breath, with each effort of breathing.

MICHAEL: When we actually had the tests done, we found out then that Luke had 56 blockages per hour. Which means that he was waking up 56 times every hour which means he was only sleeping four minutes per hour.

KERRI-ANNE: What are the other side effects of not sleeping, other than just being exhausted all the time?

SALLY: If affects everything. It affects their...Motor skills, their memory, their growth. Our bodies need to rest.

TEACHER: Can you think of something, Luke? That you've learned so far?

LUKE: That Australia is a country and a continent.

KERRI-ANNE: Luke has a form of dwarfism. At school, he's doing well and that's because he was diagnosed and treated so early. It's also because of a revolutionary Australian invention called continuous positive airway pressure,or CPAP for short. It works like a leaf blower, blowing open the airways. Because Luke now breathes at night, he sleeps easy. As for the snoring... Luke, do you snore?

KERRI-ANNE: Um, not anymore. Not anymore.

SALLY: You tell Kerri-Anne who wakes you up. Who snores in your family?

KERRI-ANNE: What's interesting is that snoring and sleep apnoea is often genetically passed down through the mother. Nici wears a CPAP mask to bed. So does James. So too does baby Ethan. He's been snoring since birth. What went through your mind when you've gone "He's snoring?"

JEREMY: "Here we go again."

KERRI-ANNE: Dad, Jeremy, is the only one not masking up. He wears something else. In May, when Ethan was six weeks old, he was admitted for a sleep study.

NICI: It's almost every minute that he will stop breathing while he was sleeping, so per hour.

JEREMY: He held his breath for 14 seconds at one stage and, thankfully, started breathing again but it was quite scary.

KERRI-ANNNE: This is video from the study. Now try holding your breath for 14 seconds. He basically chokes himself awake.

JIM: That's it, yeah.

KERRI-ANNE: That's pretty scary.

JIM: Well, there's an adrenaline rush that wakes him up.

KERRI-ANNE: Seeing Ethan gasp for breath brought it home for me. It's very distressing.

JIM: It's distressing just to look at it, let alone experience it.

KERRI-ANNE: Breathing difficulties like Ethan's could also be linked to sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS so Ethan was fitted with a CPAP mask which immediately helped his breathing... ..but the long-term solution will be surgery. The full-throated cure seems to be, as doctors are discovering, removing the tonsils. Together with the adenoids, they were once routinely taken out. The surgery is now less common, but in severe cases of sleep apnoea, losing them is the start of a more restful life.

MUM: So, you're ready to have your tonsils out?

KERRI-ANNE: Three weeks ago, Geordie went into surgery. His dad was nervous.

DAD: No tears. (CHUCKLES)

KERRI-ANNE: He didn't need to be - the results, immediate.

MUM: But he's also... You can... He's dreaming. Because also, with sleep apnoea obviously waking themselves up every two minutes, they don't dream because they don't go into a deep sleep, they don't release growth hormones so we've been told that we should see, in the next six months, Geordie shoot up.

KERRI-ANNE: As for Luke, well, he won't ever grow to be as big as his classmates but treating his snoring triggered a surprising growth spurt and he's doing great at school.

JIM: The proof is in the pudding. I'm the proudest surrogate dad there is, knowing that he's got his best school report ever just now and he's, like, top of the class.

KERRI-ANNE: And the Dahms, the family that used to snore together, now know a good night's sleep. Their sweet dreams are reward enough for Dr Jim.

JIM: By treating the children and educating the parents, I know I've saved marriages.

KERRI-ANNE: That must be very gratifying.

JIM: It's fantastic. I've got the best job in the world!