Can they "forget" to breathe?

Apparently so. The gremlins and I went on yet another field trip to Starship last night after Mercedes apnoea monitor went off and I went in to find her breathing and pink but covered in vomit - the vomit had projected more than a metre across the room Hearing the monitor made my blood run cold, I was almost too scared to touch her.

So I rang the hospital and because of her tendency to turn blue they said they wanted to check her out so off we went.

Turns out she is fine, who knows what was up with the vomiting, could be related to the reflux. They think she probably choked on it for a few seconds which set the monitor off. They wanted to keep us overnight for 'observation' but I decided I could 'observe' her at home where we would all get more sleep.

But the interesting thing I also learned is that babies can sometimes 'forget' to breathe causing an apnoea. Scary stuff! Very glad for the apnoea monitor, but all the same I am super nervous about going in to check on them in case the monitor is going off.

Poor you Emma the last thing you need is trips to the hospital in the middle of the night! Hope you get good rest tonight even after that scare

Yep, they do very often forget to breathe - premmies more so than others.. also, with the apnoea monitors. most people recommend setting them on the 20 second mark as yeah, babies can stop breathing normally for up to 10 - 15 secs at a time. sometimes they either just get sooo relaxed, or choke, or just get a bit unco-ordinated and just stop.

Big hugs and here's hoping the gremlins stop giving mummy frights. Cheeky monkeys.

Yeah scary aye. But whats a few more grey hairs between friends. Glad to hear that she got checked out and all was well. Im acutally sure the warning beep on our monitor made our girls start to breathe again.

Gosh that would have been so scary for you Emma. Good to hear everything is ok.

Yea I was told it was quite common for babies to hold their breath for 15-20 mins and Ethan has only done it once to me and Daniel and we both s**t ourselves and I was to scared to check if he was ok just in case he wasn't.

Fingers crossed it never happens again!!

Scary stuff! Glad to hear Starship wanted to check her out too - good for peace of mind I guess. And very glad to hear all is ok

I remember Haleighs Paed told me that.
I ask her why Haleigh took big gasps of breath sometimes and she said sometimes babies forget to breath, it totally freaked me out.
We had Haleigh in our room for 11 months before she went into her own room, and she was at arms length of me the whole time. I think I was such a worry wart. I used to wake up in the night just to check her.

yeahg my mums friend had one for her boy and it went off every 10 minutes and she ended up geting rid of it, they were all false alarms.
Haleigh had strider for 2 months so she grunted when she breathed, so we kjnow if she was breathing or not, so in a way wewere kinda lucky