Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Jun 14:342:d3403.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.d3403.

Association between maternal sleep practices and risk of late stillbirth: a case-control study

Tomasina Stacey  1 , John M D Thompson, Ed A Mitchell, Alec J Ekeroma, Jane M Zuccollo, Lesley M E McCowan
Affiliations

Association between maternal sleep practices and risk of late stillbirth: a case-control study

Tomasina Stacey et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objectives: To determine whether snoring, sleep position, and other sleep practices in pregnant women are associated with risk of late stillbirth.

Design: Prospective population based case-control study.

Setting: Auckland, New Zealand

Cases: 155 women with a singleton late stillbirth (≥ 28 weeks' gestation) without congenital abnormality born between July 2006 and June 2009 and booked to deliver in Auckland.

Controls: 310 women with single ongoing pregnancies and gestation matched to that at which the stillbirth occurred. Multivariable logistic regression adjusted for known confounding factors.

Main outcome measure: Maternal snoring, daytime sleepiness (measured with the Epworth sleepiness scale), and sleep position at the time of going to sleep and on waking (left side, right side, back, and other).

Results: The prevalence of late stillbirth in this study was 3.09/1000 births. No relation was found between snoring or daytime sleepiness and risk of late stillbirth. However, women who slept on their back or on their right side on the previous night (before stillbirth or interview) were more likely to experience a late stillbirth compared with women who slept on their left side (adjusted odds ratio for back sleeping 2.54 (95% CI 1.04 to 6.18), and for right side sleeping 1.74 (0.98 to 3.01)). The absolute risk of late stillbirth for women who went to sleep on their left was 1.96/1000 and was 3.93/1000 for women who did not go to sleep on their left. Women who got up to go to the toilet once or less on the last night were more likely to experience a late stillbirth compared with women who got up more frequently (adjusted odds ratio 2.28 (1.40 to 3.71)). Women who regularly slept during the day in the previous month were also more likely to experience a late stillbirth than those who did not (2.04 (1.26 to 3.27)).

Conclusions: This is the first study to report maternal sleep related practices as risk factors for stillbirth, and these findings require urgent confirmation in further studies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: TS, JMDT, and EAM received support from Cure Kids for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Comment in

References

    1. Reddy UM, Laughon SK, Sun L, Troendle J, Willinger M, Zhang J. Prepregnancy risk factors for antepartum stillbirth in the United States. Obstet Gynecol 2010;116:1119-26. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cousens S, Blencowe H, Stanton C, Chou D, Ahmed S, Steinhardt L, et al. National, regional, and worldwide estimates of stillbirth rates in 2009 with trends since 1995: a systematic analysis. Lancet 2011;377:1319-30. - PubMed
    1. Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries. Perinatal mortality 2009: United Kingdom. CMACE, 2011.
    1. Gray R, Bonellie SR, Chalmers J, Greer I, Jarvis S, Kurinczuk JJ, et al. Contribution of smoking during pregnancy to inequalities in stillbirth and infant death in Scotland 1994-2003: retrospective population based study using hospital maternity records. BMJ 2009;339:b3754. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Salihu HM, Wilson RE, Alio AP, Kirby RS. Advanced maternal age and risk of antepartum and intrapartum stillbirth. J Obstet Gynaecol Res 2008;34:843-50. - PubMed

Publication types