The leading cause of snoring in infants is a stuffy nose, but there are other reasons that could cause your child to snore. Here they are.

Parenthood, especially for first-time parents, can be tough with a lot of endless things to worry about. There’s already a ton of things that you find yourself anxious over, from the right diapers to buy, to whether your baby is well-fed, to how to fix sleepless nights and constant crying, to whether your little one is achieving their milestones or whether you’re doing enough as a parent while still meeting your own personal goals. Another thing that you may find yourself worrying about is baby snoring. On the surface, these noises may sound unanticipated or even troublesome. So, you’ll often wonder, are these noises normal? Should you rush your baby to the hospital? Continue reading to find out more about baby snoring.

You may be surprised by how something so small can produce such loud, unexpected sounds. However, these snores won’t sound like those of a grown-up. It won’t be that low, grumbly, rough kind of snore. It will sound more like a soft sound. So, it may sound musical, like whistling, bubbling, snorting, or snuffing. These sounds may increase if your baby has nasal allergies or a cold-just like it does for you.

Is Baby Snoring Normal?

For newborns, snoring is completely normal. Newborns have small nasal passages and excessive mucus build-up, which can make them snore. The good thing is that they eventually grow out of it. Usually, babies will breathe noisily, but mainly so when asleep. This breathing usually sounds like a snore and may actually be a snore. No need to worry as these noises are just an indication of a typical benchmark for growth. Snoring in babies is the sound produced when the soft tissues of your little one’s airways vibrate, and it is normally nothing that you need to stress over. There are, however, other factors that may lead to baby snoring.

A Stuffy Nose

The leading cause of snoring is a stuffy nose. Saline drops can quickly clear up nasal blockage. However, this should subside with time, as their nostrils get bigger. Still, there are other reasons why your baby’s nose may be stuffed.

RELATED: A White Noise Machine Could Solve Your Baby’s Sleeping Problems

Other Reasons For Your Baby’s Snoring

Loud baby snoring can be caused by a couple of other factors, including:

• Allergies or upper-respiratory infections. Occasional snoring occurs when your baby has the flu, cold, or seasonal allergies. This is because the little one’s nose gets stuffy, forcing him or her to breathe through their mouth, increasing snoring chances.
• A deviated septum. This may be a significantly prevalent occurrence during the first days after the baby is born, occurring in up to 20% of newborns, according to this study. Most newborns will show no symptoms from a deviated septum, and it should go away with time.
• Sleep Apnea. Sleep apnea, otherwise known as Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS), is a more serious condition. It is caused by your infant’s airways being narrower than usual, or they get partly closed, mostly because of swollen tonsils or adenoids causing your baby to literally stop breathing for a couple of seconds or longer. An alarm is sounded in the brain, telling her body to begin breathing again. So, she will gag or snort, wake up for a while and begin to breathe again. Such cycles of disruptions in sleep can prevent your baby from getting adequate sleep.
• Inflated adenoids or tonsils. These structures are intended to protect your baby from infection. They do this by trapping inhaled bacteria and viruses. However, in the process of doing so, they could get infected and swell, blocking airflow as the baby sleeps.

What Are The Remedies For Baby Snoring?

1. Nasal Aspirator – You can use an aspirator to suction the excess mucus out. While it may seem gross, it will easily clear your baby’s breathing.
2. Nasal Spray – Once your pediatrician gives the go-ahead, you can get a nasal spray to open up your little one’s nasal passages, helping her breathe easier. Alternatively, you can purchase an over-the-counter spray approved for infants in most pharmacies.
3. A Humidifier – Humidifying the air in your baby’s room using a humidifier or warm mist vaporizer will help reduce the snoring. Identically, you can loosen the secretions by giving your baby a warm shower or bath, allowing your little one to sleep better.
4. Sleeping Position – The position in which your baby sleeps may cause snoring. Sleeping on the back or stomach will most likely cause snoring. However, sleeping on the side can be dangerous for babies. Not unless they can sleep on the side naturally. So, you can elevate her head using a pillow, depending on their age. Alternatively, you can wait it out! Just let your toddler sleep on her back even though it causes a little snoring.

When Should I Visit A Doctor?

There’s no need to visit a doctor if your baby snores for a couple of days when sick and experiencing a stuffy nose or congestion. However, if your baby snores excessively, to the point where they cannot sleep, it’s advisable that you visit their pediatrician. However, most cases of baby snoring just go away on their own.

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People love Top 10 lists, such as Billboard’s “Year-End Top 10 songs,” Listverse’s “10 Hilarious Historic Predictions of Life in the 2000s,” and Google’s top 10 searched-for health topics of 2019.

This year’s Google 10 included topics we’ve covered recently, from how to lower blood pressure (No. 1), to how to get rid of hiccups (No. 3), and what causes those hiccups in the first place (No. 5).

But No. 6 on the Google list — “What causes kidney stones?” — is a topic we haven’t addressed since 2016, and clearly it’s a medical problem that’s on people’s minds.

In fact, according to Cleveland Clinic urologist Dr. Sri Sivalingam, “With the declining health of the American public [epidemics of obesity and diabetes] … over the past five to 10 years, we’ve seen an increase in the prevalence of stones, with more rapid increases among women and kids.”

So in case you’re thinking of doing a Google search, here are the causes of kidney stones, and the steps you can take to avoid them:

• Obesity. The solution? Maintain a healthy weight to avoid body-wide inflammation and diabetes, which is strongly linked to kidney stone formation.

• Dehydration. The solution? The American Urological Association says that if you’re prone to or have had kidney stones, you should drink 84 ounces of water daily.

• Excess salt. Too much salt causes an increase in calcium in the urine, which can lead to stones. The solution? Avoid fast food and canned or ultra-processed foods.

• Added fructose (such as high fructose corn syrup). The solution? Ditch foods with added fructose, sugars, and syrups. For sweets, eat citrus fruits; they help prevent stone formation.

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High levels of iron in the liver are linked to a number of serious health conditions including cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular as well as liver disease. But measuring liver iron is difficult and until recently could only be done through an invasive biopsy.

Now researchers from University of Exeter, UK, together with colleagues from the University of Westminster,London, UK, Lund University, Sweden and Perspectum Diagnostics, Owford, UK, have shown that genes regulating iron metabolism in the body are responsible for excess liver iron. These genes are the driving cause of high levels of iron in the liver in populations of European, especially Celtic, ancestry, and suggest that this is most likely a systemic and not organ-related problem. This finding can point the way to simple strategies for reducing the excess. The research is presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday).

Dr Hanieh Yaghootkar and colleagues carried out genome-wide association studies on liver iron content, measured via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in 8200 volunteers who had provided biological samples to the UK Biobank. Genome-wide association studies work by scanning markers across the complete sets of DNA of large numbers of people in order to find genetic variants associated with a particular condition.

They found three independent genetic variants associated with higher liver iron and involved in the production of hepcidin, a protein that regulates the entry of iron into the blood. The results were validated in 1500 individuals whose data had been collected in the pan-European Diabetes Research on Patient Stratification (DIRECT) Consortium. «This is the first time such a study has been carried out in an unselected, large population,» says Dr Yaghootkar.

The investigators used a genetic approach to explore the causal link between higher waist-to-hip ratio and elevated liver iron content. This provided genetic evidence that higher central (abdominal) obesity was associated with increased liver iron levels. « There are animal studies that indicate that fat cells trigger macrophages, a type of white blood cell, to cause inflammation, and that this in turn leads to defective iron handling in the liver. We need to research this association further, but it is a plausible explanation of the phenomenon, » says Dr Yaghootkar.

The fact that the mechanisms causing elevated liver iron were generalised and not organ-specific means that high iron levels probably occur in other organs too, including the brain. The researchers found an association between excess iron and many other disorders, including neuropsychiatric conditions. Because the clinical manifestations of elevated iron levels are so diverse, a multi-specialty approach will be needed to assess and evaluate new therapies, including treating patients with hepcidin to reduce iron accumulation.

MRI is continuing for 100,000 individuals in the Biobank study. « This will allow us to find many more genetic factors associated with this trait. We are also interested in performing such studies in other ethnicities, since our current results are only valid for people of European ancestry, » Dr Yaghootar will conclude.

Chair of the ESHG conference, Professor Joris Veltman, Director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, said: “Iron overload is bad for the body and needs to be tightly regulated. The genetic study presented at the ESHG today reveals a key role for genes regulating iron metabolism, and also revealed a link between certain types of obesity and iron overload.”

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