Apnea states in infants, anxiety of parents and pediatricians, and home monitoring of respiration in children

In order to determine parental reasons of the use of home apnea/respiration monitors and to estimate the grounds of these decisions correspondence contact was achieved with the parents of 71 infants monitored by means of the APNEAL-1 device. Filled up questionnaires were the source of data regarding the families (structure, health practices, mothers' age and education, course of pregnancy and delivery), monitored infants (birth weight, Apgar score, apnea events) and the reasons of monitoring. Also opinions concerning monitor usefulness and performance were gathered. The majority of our families (> 97%) consisted of both parents, their socio-economic status was medium (52.11%) or good (46.48%) and they were residents of cities (88.73%). Cigarette smoking was present in 22 families (31%) with 13 smoking mothers (18.31%). Mothers' mean age was 29.11 years (SD 4.84), 45% of them had high school education and 36.62%-university education. As many as 45% of the pregnancies had a pathological course and 34.3% were terminated by a preterm delivery. Mean birth weight of monitored children was 2914.93 g (SD 971.4), mean Apgar score was 8.31 (SD 2.46). More than 60% of children were breast fed during the first six months of life, and 30% of them--during first year of life. Bed sharing was reported in only 8% of children. Apnea episodes were observed in 30 infants (42.25 of whole group), in 20 of them only during the neonatal period. More apnea episodes were present in premature infants (48% of premature versus 30% of full term infants). Only 12 children (16.9% of whole group) manifested apnea events during the monitoring period. However, almost all the parents (97%) had a high opinion of the role played by the monitor (mean monitoring time 7.12 months, SD 4.44). In 27 families (38%) a cause of monitoring was a preceeding apnea event. The decision of remaining parents was based exclusively on fear. This fear was justified only in a small number of families (previous SIDS victim, GER). Numerous children were monitored solely on the basis of information of apnea existence in children. Such a difficult to accept monitoring reason probably has its source in inappropriate family health education.