Breath holding spells are stereotypical episodes of brief, involuntary cessations of breathing with cyanosis and hypoxia that may occur in children in response to stimuli such as anger, frustration, fear, or injury. Typically, they occur between 9 months to 3 years with a peak incidence at about 2 years(1). As the child matures and his understanding develops, these episodes decrease in frequenc...

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of iron therapy in breath-holding spells. Material and Methods: This was a prospective interventional study, which was conducted in the Department of Pediatrics, Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, from September 2010 to October 2011. A total of 43 children between the ages of 8 and 54 months, with breath holding spells (BHS) were included. Relevant data wa...

OBJECTIVE Breath holding spells (BHS) are common involuntary reflexes in infancy and early childhood. Differential diagnosis should embrace Long QT Syndrome (LQTS) and paroxysmal abnormalities of rhythm. The aim of this study was to compare QT dispersion (QTd) in children with breath holding spells and normal controls. MATERIALS & METHODS QT dispersion and Corrected QT(QTc) dispersion were me...

We report the case of a 2.5 month-old infant with cyanotic breath-holding spells, loss of consciousness and seizures. Prolonged asystole up to 70 s despite cardiopulmonary resuscitation was documented by 24 hour Holter monitoring. An epicardial pacemaker was implanted followed by no further loss of consciousness and seizures during spells in a six month follow-up period.

Background Breath-holding spells (BHS) are brief periods when young children stop breathing for up to 1 minute and are widely recognized types of non-epileptic severe occasions in early stages of childhood. This study aimed to evaluate QTd and QTc changes in children with breath-holding spells compared with healthy children. <stron...