Seppä-Moilanen M, et al. - In preterm infants, researchers examined the characteristics and impacts of sleep stage, supplemental oxygen and caffeine on periodic breathing (PB) and apnoea of prematurity (AOP). For this investigation, they involved 21 preterm infants on neonatal wards in the Helsinki and Uusimaa Hospital District, Finland, at a median corrected gestational age of 35.7 weeks and performed polysomnography at baseline, during supplemental oxygen and during caffeine treatment. The results obtained from this 2013-2015 study indicate that PB occurred predominantly during non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) sleep, caused intermittent hypoxia, and was suppressed by caffeine and supplemental oxygen. Long apnea episodes representing AOP, by contrast, have decreased only modestly.