The Mother-Offspring Conflict: The Association Between Maternal Sleep, Postpartum Depression, and Interbirth Interval Length.

ABSTRACT: To test the hypothesis that infant night waking is an adaptation to increase interbirth intervals (IBIs) (i.e., the time between a mother's consecutive births) by exhausting the mother, we made an initial attempt at investigating whether maternal sleep disturbance is associated with longer IBIs. We also explored whether postpartum depression symptoms mediated the association between maternal sleep disturbance and IBI length. We used retrospective self-reports from 729 mothers living in Finland. We conducted structural regressions separately for the mother's two first children at two different age intervals (0-1 and 1-3 years). Infant night waking was associated with maternal sleep disturbance (β  =  .78-.84) and maternal sleep disturbance was associated with postpartum depression symptoms

SUBMITTER: Gunst A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10358409 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature