Does your baby's chest dip in when they breathe?

[kellis]

We took Georgia to the emergency doctor last night because when she was in the bath we noticed her chest really sucking in around the sternum when she took a breath, it was very pronnounced and we've never seen it before. In addition to this she is very snuffly and has been for a long time and is coughing and rattly. Anyway the doctor said her chest was clear, prescribed saline drops and said that her breathing is fine. He said that this is not unusual in babies so i wondered if anyone else had noticed it in their lo?

 

[SophiasMummy]

yeh i noticed sophias chest goes in when she breathes in and only her belly seems to go out got told it was normal

 

[KittyVentura]

Fin has this.

It can be a sign they're having difficulty breathing and are using extra muscles to breath which causes the sunken look so it's always worth getting checked.

In other babies it can be what's call pes excavatum. Basically a naturally sunken chest. SOme children will grow out of it as their bones grow and mature... others will keep a sunken looking chest into adulthood. Most of the time it causes no problems but severe cases can cause issues later in life.

This link can tell you more, just be aware that any pics etc you see online are shocking and are worst case scenario ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pectus_excavatum

Pes excavatum can be mild and only a slight dip - only time will tell for our LOs really - at least Georgia will have boobs to hide hers lol xx

 

[smokey]

Brian had this realy badly when he was born (isnt as noticable now) the dr said at first that its just one of those things, its never caused him any problems and his breathing is fine.
When we took him to be weighed once though he hiccuped and it shot in and scared the hell out of the hv, she realy freaked out
she did say to get it checked out but again another dr said not to worry as his chest was clear and as he got older its no where near as noticable now unless he hiccups.

 

[brunettebimbo]

Tristan had this when he had Bronchiolitis

 

[Eddie]

Yes both of my children had this and it was really noticeable with my little boy as he has a deformed sternum (sounds more dramatic than it is) so part of his rib cage sticks out a bit in the middle).

I am paranoid as I have very severe asthma and I am so worried about my children following suit (my little bot has it very mildly but my little girl is clear). They often wheezed as babies but when we took them to see the emergency doctor is was usually just awful sounding throat noises as nothing serious at all.

 

[hannahR]

Yea Hazel had this when she had a bad cold. xx

 

[kellis]

Thank you all for your replies, it's nice to know others have experienced it and thanks for the info Kitty, thats really helpful and if she's anything like her mum she'll definatly have enough boob to hide it. I'm driving myself nuts now watching her breathing all the time It doesn't seem to be uncommon it's just that i never noticed it before now and i'm sure i would have? She has a follow up appointment with the gp on friday so we'll see how it goes.

 

[Amy_T]

We've had this too - my daughter had fluid around her lungs when she was born so it was really apparent, we spent her first 2 weeks in SCBU watching her breathe! We were more worried about that than the doc though,it continued when she came home and we still notice it now but she has no breathing problems at all, she has regular consultant follow-ups and they say its fine.

It is scary when you notice it though. x