Study Objective: To determine whether preconceptional psychological distress is associated with infant sleep disturbance.
Design: Prospective cohort study
Setting: Southampton, UK.
Participants: Acohort of women from the Southampton Women’s Survey (SWS), who were recruited between 20-34 years of age and followed through their subsequent pregnancies and beyond; a total of 874 mother-infant pairs were involved in the study.
Measurements and Results: Preconceptional psychological distress was measured with the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). When their infants were 6 and 12 months of age, mothers were asked to report the number of times babies woke on average between the hours of midnight and 06:00 each night during a 2-week period. Preconceptional psychological distress was a strong predictor of infant night waking at both 6 and 12 months of age, independent of the effects of postnatal depression, bedroom sharing, and other confounding factors. At 6 months, preconceptional distress was associated with a 23% increased risk of waking (prevalence ratio [PR] 1.23, 95% CI 1.06-1.44), and at 12 months with a 22% increased risk (PR 1.22, 95% confidence intervals [CI] 1.02-1.46).
Conclusions: Women with preconceptional psychological distress are more likely to have babies with sleep disturbance during infancy, independent of whether they suffered from postnatal depression.
Are you a subscriber?
If you are a subscriber to SLEEP (including members of the AASM and SRS),
please
login
for full access to the journal.
Not a subscriber?
Non-subscribers have the opportunity to purchase access to individual articles for
U.S. $8.00.
Click here to complete the purchase.
You may access and print any article from SLEEP for your personal scholarly,
research, and educational use. Please note, access to the article is from the computer
on which the article was purchased only. Purchase of the article does not permit
distribution, electronic or otherwise, of the article without the written permission
of APSS. Further, purchase does not permit the posting the article text on an online
forum or website.
Are you a subscriber?
If you are a subscriber to SLEEP (including members of the AASM and SRS),
please
login
for full access to the journal.
Not a subscriber?
Non-subscribers have the opportunity to purchase access to individual articles for
U.S. $8.00.
Click here to complete the purchase.
You may access and print any article from SLEEP for your personal scholarly,
research, and educational use. Please note, access to the article is from the computer
on which the article was purchased only. Purchase of the article does not permit
distribution, electronic or otherwise, of the article without the written permission
of APSS. Further, purchase does not permit the posting the article text on an online
forum or website.