Sleep and Your Experience of Labour

Hi Everyone,

This came through on Medscape today as part of a paper on Women and Sleep through the lifecycle. I found the birth outcomes fascinating.  I know that sleeping through the night was more challenging for me in pregnancy than in other times in my life.  I’m so very thankful for the hypnobirthing CDs which helped me fall back aside when I awoke.  🙂  It’s a good reminder that in the those last weeks leading up to baby’s birth, it’s so important to let your body get the rest it needs.

Marie

Ps.  If you have some pregnancy insominia, I did, then it’s important to note that resting is just as valuable as sleeping.  So even if you are wake in the middle of the night, stay in bed, rest and practice your relaxation techniques.
http://www.medscape .com/viewprogram /17198_pnt

Sleep, Labor, and Delivery
Several studies have examined sleep characteristics late in pregnancy and the relationship with labor and delivery. In 1 prospective study,[29] 131 women in their ninth month of pregnancy completed sleep logs and questionnaires, and they wore a wrist actigraphy monitor for 48 hours. The women who slept fewer than 6 hours a night had longer labors and were 4.5 times more likely to deliver by cesarean section. The women classified as having severely disrupted sleep had longer labors and were 5.2 times more likely to deliver by cesarean section.[29] Another study that also used wrist actigraphy monitoring examined the amount of sleep 35 women obtained during the 5 days before the birth of the first child in relation to pain in early labor. There was a progressive deterioration in sleep quality during the last 5 days of pregnancy, as well as a significant relationship between pain perception with spontaneous labor onset and the amount of sleep the night before labor onset.[30]