Late one night, an urgent phone ringing into the ears, the emergency department came to a child with respiratory distress, asked for consultation. At first I thought it was a child with a foreign body in the respiratory tract, immediately rushed to the emergency department, far from the emergency department heard a loud snoring sound, under the guidance of the nurses in the emergency department, I went into the room where the snoring sound came from the detention room, a parent is shaking the child in his arms. Only to see that the child is about 4 years old, gray face, snoring loudly, not breathing well. It was so hard,? The child woke up, his face gradually returned to normal. Seeing the author came in, that child’s parents hastened to say: “Doctor, quickly save my child, quickly give him surgery, he has a cold in the past two or three days, sleep snoring is getting louder and louder, breath-holding is getting more and more serious ……”. Some may ask, is snoring also a disease? Why did the parents ask for surgery? Sleep snoring is a disease, it’s just that many people don’t know much about it, including some of the medical staff. The author met the child, not long ago in the outpatient clinic to see the author to see the disease, but he is not looking for the author to see sleep snoring, the initial diagnosis is because the child often tonsil inflammation to seek treatment. At that time, the author saw that the child was relatively small, more than 7 years old, almost the same as a small child of more than 4 years old. And the child’s upper lip is upturned, showing a typical adenoid face. In the author’s questioning, it turns out that the child has been snoring since childhood, accompanied by open-mouth breathing, especially when colds, tonsil inflammation is more pronounced, between the sleep breathlessness. In the author’s opinion, the child suffered from obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (commonly known as snoring), and surgery was recommended. However, the parents of the child thought that the child’s family of three generations had sleep snoring phenomenon, and did not see any abnormality, and politely refused. The author had to tell him to take precautions and ask her to observe whether the child was holding his breath during sleep, and shake him up if he was seriously holding his breath, which could temporarily alleviate the child’s symptoms, but at present, the most effective method is still surgical treatment. This is how the scene of the parent’s request for surgery occurred just now. Later, the parents also told the author that at first she didn’t believe in the author’s words, but when she observed the child’s sleep condition for several nights, the more she saw, the more alarmed she was, and she couldn’t sleep for several nights, and she was too embarrassed to come back to the author, and she had no choice but to go back to the hospital to see the emergency doctor that night. Sleep snoring is a common phenomenon. People see a lot, but also accustomed to it. And do not think there is anything wrong. One third of a person’s life is spent from sleep, generally speaking, when a person is too tired to sleep occasionally snore, but regular or habitual sleep snoring is not normal. Two years ago, a newspaper in Guangzhou reported that several members of a family died quietly while snoring in their sleep. This is not alarmist talk, and now more and more evidence shows that sleep snoring can cause sudden death. Especially in infants and young children, sleep snoring can lead to sudden death. Generally healthy children do not snore in their sleep. Sleep snoring in children is a red flag. Why does sleep snoring occur in children? What are its most common causes? Sleep snoring in children is mainly caused by partial obstruction of the upper airway. The most common cause is enlarged tonsils and/or adenoids. Others, such as rhinitis, sinusitis, deviated nasal septum, nasal polyps, nasal tumors, nasal foreign bodies, maxillofacial deformities and so on, can cause obstruction of the upper airway, which can cause sleep snoring, and excessive obesity can also lead to sleep snoring. However, because many parents do not understand that snoring is a disease, so, quite a part of the parents go to see the doctor not because of sleep snoring, but because the child often has tonsil inflammation or often nasal congestion and so on and go to the doctor. Some patients are referred to ENT by neurologists or health care providers because of poor academic performance or physical development. Children’s sleep snoring can lead to multi-system damage, causing poor growth and development, decreased intelligence, affecting children’s hearing, social skills and so on. A typical example of this is the child I met earlier, who was more than 7 years old and no different from a normal 4-year-old child. Children sleep snoring, due to the upper airway by the hypertrophy of the tonsils and / or adenoids, so that the upper airway narrowing, will cause the child sleep apnea (breath holding), hypoxia, due to the sleep can not enter the deep sleep period, the growth hormone secretion is insufficient, which will lead to growth, mental retardation, the daytime children with poor attention in class, strange personality, academic performance decline. Sleep snoring is something that the child himself cannot realize, and because the child is still young, it is difficult to judge his own symptoms. When a child appears to be snoring in his sleep, it is a signal of danger to his surroundings, and parents need to pay more attention to it. Don’t think that snoring is a trivial matter. Since sleep snoring is a disease that can cause serious consequences, what are the ways to treat and prevent it? At present, the main clinical treatment for children’s sleep snoring is surgical removal of enlarged tonsils and/or adenoids, and treatment of concomitant rhinitis, sinusitis, etc. The effectiveness rate of surgical treatment reaches more than 90%. For individual children who have poor surgical results or are unwilling to undergo surgical treatment, or for older, obese children, transnasal continuous positive pressure ventilation can also be used. Through treatment, most children can return to normal. In terms of prevention, the main thing is to prevent tonsils and adenoids, and try to avoid colds and chills. Actively treat rhinitis and sinusitis. Appropriate exercise to enhance resistance, pay attention to a balanced diet, avoid over-nutrition leading to excessive obesity. More importantly, parents must develop the habit of observing their children’s sleep for early detection and early treatment. In addition to sleep snoring, common sleep disorders in children include sleepwalking, night terrors, enuresis, excessive sweating, restless sleep, sleep phase reversal, childhood epilepsy, asthma, etc., which can also lead to sleep disorders. Sleep disorders involve a number of clinical disciplines, especially closely related to otorhinolaryngology, respiratory medicine, neurology, stomatology and so on. At present, some hospitals have set up sleep specialties to facilitate patients’ consultation. The author has specialized in the Guangzhou City, more than 3,800 cases of children’s sleep status of the survey, found that 35% of children have sleep snoring phenomenon. However, many children did not go to the hospital, or not come to see the sleep breathing, or with the doctor mentioned sleep snoring, but did not make further examination and treatment. There are two main reasons for this, one is that the parents of the children usually do not pay attention to the observation of their children’s sleep, coupled with a lack of understanding, or even simply believe that snoring is not a disease. The second is that some medical personnel or parents have a misunderstanding of tonsils, unilaterally believe that the removal of tonsils will affect the child’s resistance, even if they know that there is a disease, but also refused to undergo treatment. In the author’s opinion, whether to remove the tonsils to treat the disease should be considered comprehensively, and the main observation is whether it will affect the child’s respiration, feeding, growth and development. The hectic pace of modern life has led to many parents not having the heart or enough energy to take care of their children. This is very undesirable and will make us less likely to find out whether a child is ill. Of course, it is not enough to observe children while they are sleeping. In our daily life, we also need to observe all aspects of children’s growth, learning and life, and at the same time, we also need to communicate with teachers to keep abreast of the children’s situation at school, and when the children’s academic performance declines, and when the children fall asleep in class, etc., we should not scold the children, but should take them to see the doctor to see if it is due to sleep disorders.