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Abstract
Sleep duration in the population has been declining. Women occupy an increasingly
prominent place in the work force without reducing most of their responsibilities
at home. Consequently, sleep needs are often pushed to the bottom of women's daily
priority list. Prior research has indicated that sleep deprivation is associated with
higher levels of pro-inflammatory serum cytokines. This is important because higher
plasma concentrations of pro-inflammatory serum cytokine levels are associated with
postpartum depression and adverse birth outcomes such as preterm delivery. However,
little research has directly examined how sleep deprivation may affect maternal and
fetal outcomes. This review summarizes the existing data on the effect of sleep deprivation
during pregnancy on maternal and fetal outcomes. We review supporting evidence for
the hypotheses that sleep deprivation during pregnancy increases the risk of preterm
delivery and postpartum depression, and that systemic inflammation is the causal mechanism
in the association. Prior research on sleep in pregnancy has been limited by varying
data collection methods, subjective self-reported sleep measures, small and non-representative
samples, cross-sectional designs; descriptive or non-hypothesis driven studies. Future
research with longitudinal study designs is needed to allow examination of the effect
of sleep deprivation on adverse maternal and fetal outcomes.
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