diff --git a/experimental/CHANGELOG.md b/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
index 657e822a16f..a94267d60a7 100644
--- a/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ All notable changes to experimental packages in this project will be documented
 * fix(sdk-logs): avoid map attribute set when count limit exceeded
 * fix(instrumentation-fetch): only access navigator if it is defined [#4063](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js/pull/4063)
   * allows for experimental usage of this instrumentation with non-browser runtimes
+* fix(instrumentation-http): memory leak when responses are not resumed
 
 ## 0.45.1
 
diff --git a/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/src/http.ts b/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/src/http.ts
index 9422bbc9efd..81e08ac860b 100644
--- a/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/src/http.ts
+++ b/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/src/http.ts
@@ -330,6 +330,9 @@ export class HttpInstrumentation extends InstrumentationBase<Http> {
       'response',
       (response: http.IncomingMessage & { aborted?: boolean }) => {
         this._diag.debug('outgoingRequest on response()');
+        if (request.listenerCount('response') <= 1) {
+          response.resume();
+        }
         const responseAttributes =
           utils.getOutgoingRequestAttributesOnResponse(response);
         span.setAttributes(responseAttributes);
diff --git a/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/test/utils/rawRequest.ts b/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/test/utils/rawRequest.ts
index c2fefa284a6..dc00fabfad3 100644
--- a/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/test/utils/rawRequest.ts
+++ b/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/test/utils/rawRequest.ts
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ export async function sendRequestTwice(
   port: number
 ): Promise<Buffer> {
   return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
-    const request = 'GET /raw HTTP/1.1\n\n';
+    const request = `GET /raw HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: ${host}:${port}\r\n\r\n`;
     const socket = net.createConnection({ host, port }, () => {
       socket.write(`${request}${request}`, err => {
         if (err) reject(err);