diff --git a/experimental/CHANGELOG.md b/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
index b9935e26c5..90dedfcf6f 100644
--- a/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/experimental/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ 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
 
 ### :books: (Refine Doc)
 
diff --git a/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/src/http.ts b/experimental/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-http/src/http.ts
index 9422bbc9ef..a76f1a918d 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('request') <= 0) {
+          response.resume();
+        }
         const responseAttributes =
           utils.getOutgoingRequestAttributesOnResponse(response);
         span.setAttributes(responseAttributes);