Some children can have a problem of breathing that is more severe when they are asleep. In order to understand this better, it may be necessary to get your child to have a “Sleep Study”. This term covers a range of tests that are all done during sleep. The most basic test (overnight pulse oxymetry) is usually able to be done by your local community children’s nursing team, at home. The results may then need to be forwarded to us at Starship for comment. Other, more sophisticated, sleep tests can only be done in hospital, at present. This would require your child and an accompanying adult to be admitted for an overnight stay, when the test equipment would be set up, and a recording obtained. In most cases a single night’s stay is all that is needed. The results from these more detailed tests are not available on the day after the readings are taken, but are usually back by a couple of weeks after the test is done. Some children without complicated medical needs will have their sleep study performed at the New Zealand Respiratory and Sleep Institute. Even though this is not on the Starship Campus, these sleep studies are reported by the Starship sleep specialists in the same way as studies done at SCH are.