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Home › Articles › Newborn and Infant Months › Newborn Breathing

Newborn Breathing

Are All Those Little Noises Normal?

By Melinda Copp

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"All this combined leads to what sounds like congestion," Dr. Shubin says.

Newborns also have some other normal breathing quirks that can worry new parents. One is known as apnea, where they pause for a few seconds between breaths. "Infants can normally stop breathing for several seconds without problems – less than 20 seconds without color change is normal," Dr. Hallas says. "This is due to the immaturity of the respiratory system, and infants outgrow infantile apnea."

Another little quirk is breathing at irregular rhythms – they may take a few slow breaths and then a few fast ones – and this is also normal. The normal respiratory rate is less than 60 breaths per minute, and newborns usually take about 40 breaths per minute, Dr. Hallas says.

Excess Mucous

"As long as your baby is drinking OK, getting three or four hours of sleep at a time, doesn't have a fever and is gaining weight, the noises are probably not a problem," says Dr. Lewis Kass, a pediatrician in private practice in Mount Kisco, N.Y. "Most cases we see of noisy breathing just reassure the parents that nothing is wrong."

But because your new baby's airways and nasal passages are so small, your baby ma sometimes need help clearing excess mucous. This is where that blue bulb syringe becomes handy.


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