Abstract
Background
Telomere length (TL) at birth is considered a potential biomarker for lifelong health.
Although maternal sleep disturbance has been linked to a series of adverse pregnancy
outcomes, evidence on the effect of maternal sleep on newborn TL remains scarce. Therefore,
we aim to investigate the association of maternal sleep duration and sleep quality
with newborn TL.
Methods
A total of 742 mother-newborn pairs were recruited from Wuhan Children’s Hospital
between November 2013 and March 2015. Cord blood TL was measured using real-time quantitative
polymerase chain reaction. Maternal sleep duration and quality during late pregnancy
were obtained via questionnaires. Multivariate linear regression models were used
to estimate the effects of maternal sleep duration and sleep quality on newborn TL.
Results
A total of 742 maternal-newborn pairs were included in the analyses. Mothers sleeping
≥10 hours had a 9.30% (95% CI: 2.09%, 15.99%) shorter newborn TL than those sleeping
7-<9 hours. However, the association in mothers with short sleep duration (<7 hours)
did not reach statistical significance. Compared to mothers with good sleep quality,
those with poor sleep quality had a 9.91% (95% CI: 4.06%, 15.40%) shorter newborn
TL. We observed a joint effect of sleep duration and sleep quality on newborn telomere
shortening. Women with sleep duration ≥10 hours and poor sleep quality were most likely
to have newborns with short TL (percent change:−19.66%, 95% CI: −28.42, −9.84%).
Conclusions
Long sleep duration and poor sleep quality during late pregnancy were associated with
shorter newborn TL.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 23, 2023
Accepted:
March 5,
2023
Received in revised form:
March 1,
2023
Received:
August 16,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.
