According to a recent study, almost 44 percent of Black Americans report having trouble sleeping. In comparison, only about 30 percent of white people had the same problem. While various reasons can interfere with sleeping well, sleep disorders have been largely treated like an adult issue. Unfortunately, that’s not the case and many parents might be missing the signs of what’s going on with their children. When The Sleep Foundation conducted a sleep study that was focused on children, it found that Black children were almost three times as likely as other ethnicities to have trouble sleeping. Worse yet, this problem often followed them into adulthood. If these children were assessed early, they would have gotten the treatment they needed before it affected their later years.
Listen to Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown as she discusses which sleep disorders can affect children, which symptoms to look out for, and what you can do about it.
