My Son Is A ‘Breathholder’ & It’s Terrifying

We were halfway through our first flight as a family of five when my youngest — then about 18 months — got so angry at his father for coaxing him into something vaguely resembling a nap position that he started to kick his feet and cry, then held his breath, lost color, went limp as a noodle, and passed out on the floor at 35,000 feet. My husband, usually as steady as a compass, jumped up and started screaming “doctor!” at the top of his lungs, which wrenched me out of the catatonia of watching Blue Crush — thankfully, my two older daughters were ensconced in their seatback screens and didn’t register a thing — just in time to take in the scene: my son, head lolling forward, skin a blueish-gray. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds until he opened his eyes again, woozy and sweaty, and started regaining his normal pinkish perfection before curling up in my lap quietly, clearly just exhausted since he’d skipped his nap — but in various ways, the jolt of adrenaline that flooded my body up on that plane has lingered somewhere deep in my core ever since.

A well-meaning endocrinologist from a few rows up unbuckled, quickly examined him, pronounced him “totally fine,” and told me that some kids simply held their breath if they got pissed off. Okee, endocrinologist, I thought, my heart beating so loudly it cut through the airplane’s white noise. I’ll circle back with you when I have a thyroid issue. But my pediatrician, whom I called the minute I landed, crazily said the same thing.

“Some kids just hold their breath, and fainting is a way for them to reset,” he said. “Make sure he’s in a position where he can’t hit his head — lie him down if possible. And please remember: you can’t be beholden to a toddler who is going to threaten to faint every time you don’t give him what he wants. That’s just madness.”

Well, let madness reign.

I spent that vacation alternately reading medical journals and rushing over to my son at the smallest indication of a perceived infraction. He wants to destroy the sandcastle painstakingly built by his sisters? Toughen up, sisters! Put on your big girl pants! Stuff gets destroyed! A few gummy bears before breakfast? Give the man a bear! No pants? Screw decency!

Up to 5% of healthy children, I learned, experience these spells, which are not choices but reflexes, a child’s automatic response to distress or frustration. Most kids outgrow the spells by age four, almost all by age six. (Reassuring! Not.) There are two types. My son (who just turned three) experiences what is known as cyanotic breath-holding, which occurs when a child is crying so hard he can’t draw breath — mouth open in a scream, no noise coming out — which leads to fainting. The other, pallid breath-holding, is often triggered by a sudden pain or fright, which causes the child to turn gray, get sweaty, then lose consciousness.

“The episodes are extremely frightening to watch, but have benign consequences,” one NCBI article wrote. Benign consequences for the child, fine, but what about the parent?

I went deep on chat boards and spoke to a number of people, all of whom had different thoughts for how to best ride out another spell. One suggested holding him upside down. Another, a pediatrician in my doctor’s practice, said that the goal was to “jolt” the child into remembering to take a breath again. Blowing in his face, or placing a cold washcloth on him, were offered as armamentarium.

How many spells did I avert the months after the first incident by rushing him to the sink and flicking him with water? How many moments was he just going to do a normal cry, and found himself soaked by crazy Mom? For one stint, I decided that holding him was the best way to calm him. Then I decided placing him on the ground was better. There was a multi-month period when at any hint of a cry, we’d rush him to look at water running out of the sink, which seemed to calm him, or confuse him just enough to force him into breathing. Each time, I’d find myself closing my eyes and waiting to hear that intake of breath, which I idiotically took to mean that I’d saved him.

Of the countless times he’s started to cry since that airplane ride, he’s fainted five times in two years. Just five times, total, triggered by getting either frustrated (give me the lollipop already!) or mildly hurt and surprised (like when he ran off the edge of a couch because, what is depth perception?). During each one, I could almost hear the gray hairs springing out of my hairline.

Knock on wood, the last one he had was over six months ago. I’ve stopped hurtling him towards bodies of water whenever he gets cranky, stopped blowing on him furiously like he’s something aflame. One day recently, I watched him grow furious that he couldn’t chuck the gyroscope — a present for the girls from my father — directly at their heads. I calmly explained to him that flinging heavy metal objects at people was a bad idea. And it occurred to me, in that moment, as his mouth opened wide and no sound came out, that parents of breath-holders are forced to confront directly something that every parent internalizes eventually: No matter how much you try to control a child, the exercise is futile. You want them to sleep in their bed at a certain time for a certain number of hours? Fat chance. You’d prefer for them not to take that fistful of yogurt and grind it into their hair? Mmmk. Your job, more than any other, is to relax into the knowledge that having a child is one big exercise in losing control — of your time, of your plans, of the life you once knew. And for that, you get the privilege of having your world cracked open in a million wonderful different ways.

That day, I stood there holding the gyroscope and watching him turn blue, my heart starting to race — and then he took a breath. And we went on with our day.

Sophie Brickman is a writer, reporter, and editor who has written for The New Yorker, TheNew York Times, TheWall Street Journal, Elle, Saveur, The Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, and other outlets. Her work has also appeared in the Best Food Writing and the Best American Science Writing anthologies. Her first book, Baby, Unplugged, about the intersection of technology and parenting, received a starred Publisher’s Weekly review and landed her a spot on Good Morning America.Plays Well with Others is her first novel.She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.