How To Know If Your Child Needs To Go To A Sleep Lab

How do I know if my child needs to go to a sleep lab?

Well the first thing is to identify that your child has got a sleep problem. Because the majority of sleep problems in children are behavioral related. Usually it's useful to get a good history to figure out 'is this behavioral or is it not?' Now, some children may present to the ear, nose and throat doctor or the pulmonologist they have pulmonary problems, the parent may say 'my child is snoring.' The ear, nose, and throat doctor might look in their mouth and say, 'gosh, these tonsils are gigantic, they're huge' and then they might want to rule out obstructive sleep apnea. And so that would be an indication of referral for a sleep study. Sometimes when you see a child with a sleep problem and you can't really figure out, is this behavioral, could this child be waking up because of seizures, could this be parasomnia, could this child be waking up because of leg movements? Then you'd want to bring them into the sleep lab to do a study.