Bed-wetting and obstructive sleep apnea may happen together because of a shared underlying cause

What is it about?

Bed-wetting is common in children and happens more often in children who have obstructive sleep apnea. We studied children suspected of having obstructive sleep apnea who were having sleep studies and asked them about bed-wetting. We wanted to understand why children with obstructive sleep apnea are more likely to have bed-wetting; understanding why these two sleep problems often happen together would help us learn about the underlying problems causing bed-wetting and obstructive sleep apnea. What we found was that obstructive sleep apnea was not worse in children with enuresis but children with enuresis did have more pauses in breathing that came from their brain sending less signals to breathe (central apnea and hypoppnea) as well as an increase, rather than the expected decrease, in heart rate across the night. These findings suggest that autonomic control, the system in the brain that regulates automatic body functions such as heart rate, breathing pattern, and temperature regulation, is set differently in some children which predisposes them to both nocturnal enuresis and bed-wetting.

Featured Image

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This is important because both of these problems are hard for children and their families and our current treatments for both bed-wetting and obstructive sleep apnea are limited. If we better understand the underlying causes of these sleep problems, we can look at new waves of providing treatment and ways to prevent them from happening.

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