Tag Archives: OBGYN

Sleep-Deprived New Parents Aren’t Imagining Things

 

A comical take on new baby sleeplessness highlights a new Australian study that puts numbers to post-baby sleepiness. Blogger Laura Sanders calls her own experience “a haze of extreme sleep deprivation” that Ashleigh Filtness of Queensland University of Technology in Australia found continued 4.5 months after babies are born.

 

“The problem wasn’t that the women weren’t getting enough total sleep,” writes Sanders. “On average, they were pulling down about seven hours and 20 minutes of sleep a night. The trouble was that this sleep didn’t happen in a single, beautiful block of nighttime bliss. Night wakings splintered these women’s sleep into shards.”

 

Women kept detailed sleep logs in the sixth, twelfth and eighteenth weeks after their baby’s birth. The researchers believed that to ask for logs in the immediate weeks following birth would be unethical. As time went by, sleep did improve, the logs showed.

 

“A measure called the sleep disturbance index, which is time spent awake after first going to bed relative to the total sleep time, lessened as the weeks progressed,” writes Sanders. “That’s progress. But at 18 weeks, over half of the women still reported excessive daytime sleepiness, identified by a score of 12 or higher on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, the researchers found.”

 

In addition to being unpleasant, this pernicious drowsiness might become dangerous if, say, a new mother has to drive every day for her job. The authors write that their study titled “Longitudinal Change in Sleep and Daytime Sleepiness in Postpartum Women” might be useful in crafting leave policies for parents.

 

Click Here to Read full Article

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Maternal snoring during pregnancy is associated with enhanced fetal erythropoiesis – a preliminary study

Source

Pediatric Sleep Center, Dana Children’s Hospital, Tel Aviv Souraski Medical Center, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE AND BACKGROUND:

Snoring is common among pregnant women and early reports suggest that it may bear a risk to the fetus. Increased fetal erythropoiesis manifested by elevated circulating nucleated red blood cells (nRBCs) has been found in complicated pregnancies involving fetal hypoxia. Both erythropoietin (EPO) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) mediate elevation of circulating nRBCs. The intermittent hypoxia and systemic inflammation elicited by sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) could affect fetal erythropoiesis during pregnancy. We hypothesized that maternal snoring will result in increased levels of fetal circulating nRBCs via increased concentrations of EPO, IL-6, or both.

METHODS:

Women of singleton uncomplicated full-term pregnancies were recruited during labor and completed a designated questionnaire. Umbilical cord blood was collected immediately after birth and analyzed for nRBCs, plasma EPO and plasma IL-6 concentrations. Newborn data were retrieved from medical records.

RESULTS:

One hundred and twenty-two women were recruited. Thirty-nine percent of women reported habitual snoring during pregnancy. Cord blood levels of circulating nRBCs, EPO and IL-6 were significantly elevated in habitual snorers compared with non-snorers (p=0.03, 0.005 and 0.01; respectively). No differences in maternal characteristics or newborn crude outcomes were found.

CONCLUSIONS:

Maternal snoring during pregnancy is associated with enhanced fetal erythropoiesis manifested by increased cord blood levels of nRBCs, EPO and IL-6. This provides preliminary evidence that maternal snoring is associated with subtle alterations in markers of fetal well being.

Sleep Med. 2011 May;12(5):518-22.

 

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Sleep Disordered Breathing in Women: pregnancy, post-menopause & post-hysterectomy

As presented at the AACP 18th Annual Midwinter meeting Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans Jan 28-29 2011 entitled “Putting Sleep Knowledge to work”

Sleep-Disordered Breathing in Women: Pregnancy, Post-Menopause, and Post-Hysterectomy,
by Edward P. Spiegel, DDS
This presentation will walk attendees through an intermediate-level overview of the science of sleep as it relates to women’s health
and the unique manifestation of sleep disorders in the female population throughout the life cycle.
Upon conclusion, attendees should be able to
• Have an intermediate background in the science of sleep as it pertains specifically to the female body.
• Gain an intermediate understanding of the manifestation of sleep-breathing disorders and their systemic effects
throughout all stages of the female life cycle.
• Identify specific female patient populations within their respective practices who may be suffering from sleep breathing disorders
SleepScholar thanks Dr Ed Spiegel for his continued support and sharing this presentation with us. If there are any questions associated with this material please comment in our related LinkedIn forum for comment by Dr Spiegel. To view click the link below
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Related posts:

  1. Thompson River University Multidisciplinary Sleep Conference 2011 March 18 to 20, 2011

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