Preliminary report: Sleep duration during late pregnancy predicts postpartum emotional responses among parents at risk for postpartum depression.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Sleep loss is common during the perinatal period; however, few studies have assessed potential consequences of insufficient sleep for postnatal emotional responding, a key contributor to parenting behaviors with implications for parent-infant bonding and mental health. To generate hypotheses for future work assessing perinatal sleep and emotion-related outcomes, this pilot study explored whether prenatal sleep duration predicted postnatal emotional responding in a sample at risk for postpartum depression.

Methods

Participants were nine birthing parents with a prior mood disorder who were not in a current episode at enrollment. We estimated sleep with actigraphy collected for 1 week at 33 weeks' gestation and at 2 and 6 weeks postpartum. Following each week, part

SUBMITTER: Mason GM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11462443 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature