A journal JAMA Pediatrics published study has stated that sleepwalking is hereditary. The habit is passed from parent to child through a gene, which is yet to be identified.

Researchers said that sleepwalking or somnambulism does not always involve walking. A person is considered to be sleepwalking if he is performing a complex task like talking, sitting up in bed and getting dressed in a state of deep sleep. This problem is more common among children than adults.

For the study, study researchers assessed data of almost 2,000 children born in the Canadian province of Quebec in 1997 or 1998 and were tracked till 2011. The study researchers tracked them when children were 2.5 years old and continued till they turn 13.

The researchers asked questions from mothers of children being tracked about whether the latter had sleepwalked in the last year. If they had sleepwalked what was their frequency ranging from sometimes, often or always.

When children were 10 years old, the study researchers asked mothers whether they or child's father had ever sleepwalked. Habit of sleepwalking peaked around the age of 10, as 13.4% children engaged in this activity at that age.

When children were 13 years old, around 12.8% reported sleepwalking incidents. During the entire study period, 29% confessed that they have sleepwalked at some point in their children.

Considering family history part, 22.5% children with no history of sleepwalking became sleepwalkers at least once. This habit was more than double, 47.4%, among children who had at least one parent with sleepwalking past. It tripled, 61.5%, for children who had both parents as sleepwalking veterans.

"Parents who have been sleepwalkers in the past, particularly in cases where both parents have been sleepwalkers, can expect their children to sleepwalk and thus should prepare accordingly", affirmed study researchers.