O’Brien says further studies need to delve deeper into what may drive the relationship between maternal sleep and stillbirths, with particular focus on how the autonomic nervous system – the control system that regulates bodily function – and the hormonal system are regulated during sleep in late pregnancy. “While multiple awakenings during the night may concern some women, in the context of stillbirth it appears to be protective.” “Pregnant women often report waking up and getting up in the middle of the night,” says lead author Louise O’Brien, Ph.D., M.S., a University of Michigan researcher in the Division of Sleep Medicine, Department of Neurology and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Michigan Medicine. But researchers caution that further research is needed to better understand the relationship and what it means for pregnant women. The findings, which appear in journal Birth, suggest an association between lengthy periods of undisturbed maternal sleep and stillbirths that were independent of other risk factors. Researchers analyzed online surveys involving 153 women who had experienced a late stillbirth (on or after 28 weeks of pregnancy) within the previous month and 480 women with an ongoing third-trimester pregnancy or who had recently delivered a live born baby during the same period.

Sleeping more than nine hours per night during pregnancy may be associated with late stillbirth, a new Michigan Medicine-led international study suggests. Education, Training & Faculty Development.National Clinician Scholars Program at IHPI.Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network.

Undisturbed birth