Original ArticleSleep patterns and sleep disturbances across pregnancy
Section snippets
Participants
Participants included 2427 pregnant women: at recruitment, < 2 months (n = 346), three months (n = 298), four months (n = 282), five months (n = 269), six months (n = 265), seven months (n = 354), and ≥8 months (n = 613).
Procedure
All data were collected online. The questionnaire was set as a pop-up screen on BabyCenter, a popular pregnancy website. Completion of the questionnaire was voluntary, there were no exclusionary criteria, and the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Saint
Demographics
Complete demographic data for the entire sample are provided in Table 1. Most women were between the ages of 25 and 34 years (63.1%) and Caucasian (56.2%). Approximately half had a college education (57.8%) and half were employed full time (51.5%). The sample was almost evenly split between those with household incomes under $50,000 (41.9%) and those over (58.1%). Approximately half (51.8%) of the participants were multiparous. No significant differences were noted across month of pregnancy for
Comments
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first large-scale survey of sleep during pregnancy that looked at data month by month. Across pregnancy, women experienced poor sleep quality, insufficient nighttime sleep, significantly disrupted sleep, and significant daytime sleepiness. Overall, 76% of the women were found to be poor sleepers, as assessed by the PSQI [9]. This rate of poor sleep is much higher than for women in the general population. For example, in a global study of women
Funding sources
This study was supported by Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Products Worldwide, a division of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc. The sponsor was involved in data collection. Dr. Mindell took sole responsibility for data analysis, interpretation of the data, writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the article for publication.
Conflict of interest
Jodi Mindell has served as a consultant and speaker for Johnson & Johnson. Rae Ann Cook and Janeta Nikolovski are employees of Johnson & Johnson.
The ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest associated with this article can be viewed by clicking on the following link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2014.12.006.
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