Sleep disturbances in depressed pregnant women and their newborns
Section snippets
Participants
Two hundred fifty-three pregnant women were recruited during their second trimester of pregnancy (R = 20–24 weeks; M = 22.3 weeks) at a prenatal ultrasound clinic. Following informed consent, they were given a diagnostic interview (SCID) to determine whether they were depressed. Thirty-three percent of the sample was depressed (N = 83). Twenty percent of the depressed women were diagnosed as having dysthymia, and 80% as having major depression. They were distributed 55% Hispanic, 23% African-American
Results
ANOVAs were performed on the sleep disturbance and other self-report variables and urine assays taken during the second and third trimesters for the depressed and non-depressed pregnant women and on the activity levels of their fetuses and on the sleep–wake behaviors of their newborns. As can be seen in Table 1, during the second trimester, the depressed women: (1) had higher scores on the self-report measures including sleep disturbances, depression, anxiety and anger; (2) higher
Discussion
Although no literature could be found on sleep disturbances in depressed pregnant women, the findings of this study were not surprising, given the frequently reported relationships between sleep disturbances and pregnancy (Lee et al., 2000, Sahota et al., 2003) and between sleep disturbances and depression (De Gennaro et al., 2004, Saletu-Zyhlarz et al., 2001).
The stability of sleep disturbances across the second and third trimester is consistent with other findings on sleep disturbances in
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the parents and infants who participated in this study. This research was supported by a merit award (MH# 46586) and Senior Research Scientist Awards (MH# 00331 and AT# 001585) and a March of Dimes Grant (#12-FYO3-48) to Tiffany Field and funding from Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute to the Touch Research Institutes. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Tiffany Field, Ph.D., Touch Research Institutes, University of Miami School of Medicine, P.O.
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