(Business Standard) – Children are seven times more likely to sleepwalk if both their parents have a history of sleepwalking, according to a new study.
More than 60 per cent of children developed sleepwalking when both their parents were sleepwalkers in a study among kids born in the Canadian province of Quebec, researchers said.
The study also found that children with one parent who was a sleepwalker had three times the odds of becoming a sleepwalker compared with children whose parents did not sleepwalk.
Sleepwalking is a common childhood sleep disorder that usually disappears during adolescence. Sleep terrors are another early childhood sleep disorder often characterised by a scream, intense fear and a prolonged period of inconsolability.
The two disorders (also known as parasomnias) share many of the same characteristics and arise mainly from slow-wave sleep, according to the study.