Abstract
Objective
To describe sleep characteristics in the third trimester of pregnancy for women who
had a prior pregnancy loss compared to women with no history of loss.
Design
Descriptive comparison of baseline data prior to randomization for a clinical trial.
Setting
Participants’ homes.
Participants
Eligible women recruited from childbirth education classes during third trimester
were over 18 years old, in partnered relationships, spoke English, did not work nightshift
or have a diagnosed sleep disorder, and had no current complications or prior pregnancy
loss (n = 140). Women with prior miscarriage or stillbirth were offered enrollment in an
ancillary study (n = 20).
Measurements
Sleep was assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and wrist actigraphy.
Other measures included relationship satisfaction, perceived stress, and depressive
symptoms. For this analysis, only third trimester data prior to randomization were
compared.
Results
Both groups had similar actigraphy-recorded sleep duration (7.1 ± 1.1 hours) and sleep
efficiency (83.7 ± 7.9%). However, the pregnancy loss group had significantly (p = .050) worse PSQI scores (7.8 ± 2.6) than controls (6.7 ± 3.1), resulting primarily
from the sleep disturbance component (p = .003), specifically bad dreams (p = .030) and legs twitching/jerking (p = .071). Controlling for demographic and health factors in multivariate analyses,
prior pregnancy loss was significant for sleep disturbance (p = .047), bad dreams (p = .018), and partner-reported leg twitching/jerking (p = .048).
Conclusions
Long after the acute grief of a pregnancy loss, perceived sleep quality can be problematic
during the next pregnancy. Whether poor sleep quality is present prior to the pregnancy
loss or reflects long-term maternal sleep characteristics require further research.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 08, 2022
Accepted:
November 14,
2022
Received in revised form:
October 12,
2022
Received:
April 20,
2022
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
