6. Night Sweats: The Mysterious Liquid Intruder
As if to add an enigma to the complexity of sleep apnea, night sweats are a puzzling symptom that leaves parents both concerned and confused. Night sweats are essentially excessive sweating during sleep, and unlike what one might immediately think, they aren’t necessarily tied to a hot climate or room temperature.
Your child’s bedsheets are soaked, but not from a spilled drink or an accident; it’s sweat. This curious situation occurs when the body’s autonomic nervous system goes into overdrive, often as a response to interrupted breathing. It’s as if the body is running a marathon during sleep, expending energy just to catch a breath, leading to excessive sweating.
The physiology here is almost poetic: the body, in an endeavor to ‘cool off,’ ends up producing more sweat than needed. But the result isn’t a refreshing cool-down. Instead, it’s a clammy, uncomfortable sensation that disrupts the tranquility of sleep, leaving both child and parent perplexed.
You might find it challenging to link this seemingly isolated symptom to sleep apnea, but in reality, it’s deeply connected. Night sweats can create a vicious cycle—sweating can lead to waking, which leads to more difficulty falling back to sleep, all contributing to the cumulative sleep debt a child might accrue over time.
The thing about night sweats is that they’re like a silent alarm—easy to dismiss but crucial to heed. While they may not appear as dramatic as choking or gasping for breath, their subtlety is precisely what makes them a critical symptom to observe, especially when seen in tandem with other symptoms on this list. (6)
