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. 2023 May 15;4(1):219-231.
doi: 10.1089/whr.2023.0009. eCollection 2023.

Sleep Disparities Across Pregnancy: A Michigan Cohort Study

Chia-Lun Yang  1 , Erica C Jansen  2 , Galit Levi Dunietz  3 , Kelly Hirko  1 , Louise M O'Brien  3   4   5 , Jean M Kerver  1
Affiliations

Sleep Disparities Across Pregnancy: A Michigan Cohort Study

Chia-Lun Yang et al. Womens Health Rep (New Rochelle). .

Abstract

Introduction: Poor sleep health during pregnancy is related to adverse pregnancy outcomes. This study aims to identify sociodemographic characteristics associated with sleep health during pregnancy and to examine how they relate to changes in sleep during pregnancy.

Materials and methods: Participants (n = 458) were from the Michigan Archive for Research on Child Health, which is a prospective pregnancy cohort. Sociodemographic characteristics and self-reported sleep timing and quality were collected in phone interviews. This longitudinal study collected sleep parameters once during the early trimesters and once during the third trimester. Fall asleep and wake-up times were used to calculate sleep duration and sleep midpoint.

Results: Compared to the third trimester, sleep duration was 12 minutes longer (p = 0.02), fall asleep time was 21 minutes earlier (p < 0.001), and the midpoint of sleep was 12 minutes earlier (p = 0.01) in early trimesters. Shorter sleep duration was noted in younger women. Sleep midpoint was later in those who were younger, overweight, or obese, racial minorities, unmarried, and with lower educational levels or socioeconomic status, and who smoked before pregnancy after adjusting for covariates. After controlling for confounders, women who were not working for pay had higher likelihood of reduced sleep duration, and women who were unmarried were more likely to have a delayed sleep midpoint in the third trimester compared to the early trimesters.

Conclusions: This study suggests that sleep parameters changed during pregnancy and sleep health differed by sociodemographic characteristics. Understanding sleep disparities could help with early detection of at-risk populations during prenatal care.

Keywords: disparities; pregnancy; sleep; socioeconomic; trimester.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Flowchart for the inclusion of study participants. Second interview could be missing due to the fact that pregnancy was not yet in the later stage and therefore participants had not yet been contacted to complete the second interview. MARCH, Michigan Archive for Research on Child Health.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 2.
Sleep pattern between early trimesters and the third trimester. Sleep duration was longer (p = 0.02), fall asleep time was earlier (p < 0.001), and the midpoint of sleep was earlier (p = 0.01) in early trimesters compared to the third trimester. No significant difference in wake-up time was noted (p = 0.48). Participants' mean (standard deviation) gestational weeks were 14.5 (5.3) in the early trimesters and 32.9 (3.1) in the third trimester interviews.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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