Scary, Scary

Something pretty scary happened with Emrick today, and we ended up taking him to the doctor. Here’s what happened:

Emrick was napping in his little Fisher Price rocker/chair/sleeper thing, which we keep in the family room. That’s usually where he naps during the day, and I always stay close by. Anyway, he had been napping there for over an hour when as usual, he began to awaken and whimper. I rocked his chair a little and he went back to sleep. A few minutes later he woke up with a loud cry. So I picked him up to comfort him and as I did he started to cough a little. That happens sometimes… he will cry and then cough lightly for a couple of seconds. I think what happens is the crying makes him gag a little on his saliva. But this time, after the light coughing, he actually stopped breathing for a few seconds. I had been holding him against my chest and shoulder when I suddenly felt his little belly stop moving. I pulled him away from me to look at him and saw him gasping for air. I gave him a few pats and he started to breathe again, but with shallow breaths. A few seconds later, he stopped breathing a second time. As I watched him gasp, he turned red. I put my mouth over his mouth and nose and gave him a breath. He started breathing again and was immediately fine, and has been fine since. That was about five hours ago.

But it scared the crap out of me. As it just so happens, I was reading something about infant breathing just yesterday (I wasn’t looking for that info, but I happened upon it), and found that pauses in breathing are normal and that you probably don’t need to worry unless the pause is 20 seconds or longer. In Emrick’s case, each cessation was only about 5 seconds. But there’s nothing quite like watching your infant son struggle for air while you hold him helplessly and feel the core of your body burn and your heart rate skyrocket.

So I called the doctor and made an appointment for 45 minutes later. Marcus met me there. The doctor checked the baby out and said he looks healthy and fine. His heart rate and breathing were normal. When I described what happened, the doc said that Emrick probably gagged a little on normal mucous, saliva and other secretions that sometimes pool up in the throat when one sleeps. He said the fact that he struggled for air was actually a good sign. True apnea, he said, is usually accompanied by the infant having no reaction to his sudden lack of oxygen, because the part of the brain that makes the body realize it needs air doesn’t work properly. So an infant with a life-threatening breathing problem is often limp and nonresponsive when his breathing stops. Emrick wasn’t like that. Nevertheless, he said if it starts happening regularly, or if the episodes last longer than 5-10 seconds, then we will take him in for formal tests. But the doc said he has no other signs of anything being wrong — no signs of infection, heart problems, or anything else that sometimes causes breathing problems.

So this was probably just a chance thing with no connection to any health problem. A few minutes after it happened, I felt and reasoned that there was probably nothing really wrong, but obviously, I hope it doesn’t happen again. Before I called the doctor, I first called Marcus, then my mom. While on the phone with my mom, Marcus texted me and said that he asked around the office, and virtually everyone said that they had seen the same thing happen with their own children and that it was common and no big deal. So maybe this is just what kids do: they take years off of your life by making you worry. Still, when I called my mom to ask her if she had ever seen anything like this with any of her four children, she was less than reassuring! The only even remotely similar thing she could recall was an episode where Clark screamed himself breathless after she had put up a gate to keep him out of the kitchen. Clark was a bit older when that happened (it was just last year ;)), though.

Anyway, please keep Emrick in your thoughts, prayers, and hopes. He is most likely just fine, but at the very least, cross your fingers that I don’t have a coronary the next time he does something scary.