Little Haley Rivera hasn't slept for more than three hours since she was born. Parents, who have been deprived of normal sleep for 18 months, turned to specialists for help. Hailey Rivera has never slept all night since she was born 18 months ago.
“When she was about 2 weeks old, she didn't sleep at all. I found it odd that a baby would stay awake most of the day,”says Jennifer Stella, a loving and sleep-deprived mother of three.
The situation did not change in the father's house. Every month the disease progressed, Stella noticed that Haley snored, and sometimes, waking up, she gasped for air. The maximum girl sleeps for two to three hours at a time. Desperate for help, Stella turned to Dr. Haviva Veler, director of the Children's Sleep Center. The modern sleep center, which opened less than a year ago, has modern equipment and a team of doctors in children's sleep, otolaryngology, neurology and psychology.
“The most important thing I want to convey to my parents is that snoring is not just a funny noise. This is a serious problem if your child snores regularly. About 10% of babies snore, but if it happens loudly and more than three times a week, sleep apnea could be the culprit,”said a doctor who specializes in problems such as sleep apnea, sleepwalking, nightmares and seizures.
Upper airway obstruction is a serious problem. This means that the baby stops breathing for a few seconds and so many times during the night, the oxygen level in the body decreases and sleep is disturbed. This can eventually lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, hyperactivity, and learning problems.
Stella and her ex-husband Edgar Rivera, an ambulance driver, tried to find a way to help their daughter. They received an offer from doctors at the center to conduct a study on Hailey's night sleep.
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The girl was brought to the sleep laboratory at 7:30 pm, the time she usually falls asleep. As the baby fell asleep, the team began monitoring breathing, brain waves, heart rate, oxygen levels, and Haley's number of breaths. All this lasted until 6 am.
After analyzing the findings, the doctor concluded that Hayley suffered from moderate sleep apnea and added that most of the time the girl woke up for behavioral rather than medical reasons. He advised Stella to put more pacifiers in her daughter's bed so that when the girl wakes up, she can easily find the pacifier and fall asleep.
Rivera, who also has two sons aged 12 and 7, hopes that Hayley will now be correctly diagnosed.
“When I see newborns and toddlers sound asleep in their stroller, I guess wow, Hailey never sleeps like that. We very much hope that soon she will sleep well,”said the girl's father.
Alexey Slobodyan
