(RxWiki News) Having a chronic illness like asthma can often affect many different parts of your health. One concern with asthma is that it can hurt children's sleep quality.
However, a recent study found that asthma does not appear to affect children's sleep quality or bedtime. It does seem linked to a higher amount of sleepiness during the day for some children.
"If your child has sleeping issues - call a pediatrician."
The study, led by Annette van Maanen, a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam's Research Institute Child Development and Education, aimed to learn more about the sleep quality of children with asthma.
The study involved 2,529 children who had been enrolled in a study called the Prevention and Incidence of Asthma and Mite Allergy (PIAMA) birth cohort.
Their parents answered questions about the children's asthma symptoms, such as wheezing and shortness of breath.
The parents also answered whether their children had been diagnosed with asthma and been prescribed inhalers for symptoms.
The children answered questions about their sleeping habits, including what time they went to bed and woke up and how well they slept. They also rated their sleepiness during the daytime.
The researchers found that children with more frequent asthma symptoms reported feeling more sleepiness during the day than the children without symptoms.
While 34 percent of the children with symptoms felt daytime sleepiness, 22 percent of the kids without symptoms and 21 percent of the children with infrequent symptoms felt tired during the day.
This link between asthma symptoms and sleepiness during the day remained true regardless of a child's gender or age and regardless of whether they lived in a home where someone smoked.
The researchers did not find any patterns between asthma symptoms and a child's bedtime, sleep quality or amount of time spent in their bed.
The authors concluded that the only association that appeared to exist between sleeping issues and asthma symptoms was the higher level of tiredness during the day for some children who had asthma.
The study was published August 16 in the European Respiratory Journal. Information was unavailable regarding the study's funding or the authors' possible conflicts of interest.
