Breathing Changes During Seizures: What to Know
Breathing changes can be frightening to witness. This page gives you a clear first-aid route, questions for the care team, and context for a research review. You can use the practical steps without reading the research today.
Trouble breathing or waking up after a seizure? Call 911. Also call for a seizure that reaches 5 minutes, another seizure soon afterward, or a person’s first seizure. Stay with the person, protect them from injury and gently turn them onto their side when safe if they are lying down. See the full first-aid guide and printable for other emergency signs. CDC first-aid guidance.
Go to care-team questions · Go to the research summary
Questions about breathing and seizure safety
These questions help turn a worrying topic into a personal plan. They are practical prompts, separate from the review below.
- What breathing or recovery changes should someone helping me look for, and when should they call 911?
- How should these instructions appear in my seizure action plan?
- If I have prescribed rescue medicine, what breathing precautions, emergency instructions and training apply to that medicine?
- How do my seizure type, seizure control and seizures during sleep affect my SUDEP risk?
- What can we do to improve seizure control? What should I do if I am still having seizures or struggling to take medicine as prescribed?
- If a monitor is being considered, what can it detect, what can it miss, and who would respond to an alert?
CDC describes SUDEP as rare and recommends discussing your own risk with your clinician, taking seizure medicine as prescribed and reporting continuing seizures. Read CDC’s SUDEP information. For medication-specific instructions, use your prescription and action plan; the Epilepsy Foundation’s rescue-therapy information explains why those plans matter. This article does not establish that a monitor or breathing intervention prevents SUDEP.
Summary
Elisa Micalizzi and colleagues reviewed experimental and clinical research on breathing changes during and after seizures. This is a narrative review, not a new study of one patient group. It discusses focal seizures, generalized tonic-clonic seizures and possible links with sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).
The review cites central apnea (a pause in breathing) in 36% to 40% of monitored focal seizure events and low oxygen levels in 33% to 41% of the cited cases. These figures describe events or cases in the research discussed. They are not SUDEP rates or an individual’s risk. Breathing pauses after convulsive seizures may reflect changes in brainstem function.
The authors discuss possible mechanisms and research directions. The review does not calculate personal SUDEP risk or establish that a particular breathing intervention prevents SUDEP. Its findings come from varied studies, and further research is needed.
Source basis: PubMed abstract; DOI 10.1016/j.clinph.2025.2110962. Evidence type: Narrative review of experimental and clinical research. Source checked October 5, 2026.
Correction – October 4, 2026: Corrected the research design and clarified that reported event rates are not personal SUDEP probabilities.
Update — October 5, 2026: Added a first-aid route and care-team questions, clarified the opening and replaced unrelated reading links. Retained the narrative-review classification and the distinction between research event rates and personal SUDEP risk.
Suggest a correction: email hello@epilepsyexplained.com with the page URL, the passage in question, and a supporting source if available.
Keep exploring: Sleep and seizure safety: a free practical guide with questions for your care team and a printable worksheet.
Free: Seizure First Aid Quick Guide (PDF)
Plus one plain-language weekly digest of new epilepsy research.
Unsubscribe anytime. No medical advice.
