Sad Moms Equal Sleepless Babies
Reported May 05, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) Women who suffer from depression before their babies are born are more likely to have infants who keep them up at night.
A new study finds these infants have a harder time settling down to sleep, sleep for shorter periods of time, and take shorter daytime naps than infants whose mothers did not suffer from depression during their pregnancies.
The authors believe these effects might be due to fetal exposure to the stress hormone cortisol. But that doesnt mean these babies are irreversibly destined to sleep poorly once they are born.
We do think that we could develop a behavioral and environmental intervention to improve entrainment of sleep and circadian rhythms in the high risk infants, study author Roseanne Armitage, Ph.D., director of the Sleep and Chronophysiology Laboratory at the University of Michigan Depression Center, was quoted as saying. Regardless of the cause, they may still be modifiable since brain regulation is very plastic and responsive in childhood.
The study was conducted among 18 healthy, full term infants, 11 of whom were born to mothers suffering from depression. Both mothers and children were measured for sleep quality over a six-month period using standard tests.
SOURCE: SLEEP, published online May 1, 2009