Frequent and prolonged night waking in infants tied to maternal depression
According to recent findings, it has been observed that by 6 months, some infants have developed a pattern of frequent and prolonged night waking and the mothers of these infants appear to be at increased risk of clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms.
The study is published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
One of the many challenges mothers face in caring for a young infant is coping with the sleep fragmentation and deprivation caused by infant night waking. Nearly all infants awaken regularly for feeding during their early weeks and months because of their need for nutrition. By 3 to 4 months, however, the majority of infants no longer physiologically require nighttime feedings, yet many continue to awaken.
Because mothers provide most of the nighttime care for infants, their sleep is often disrupted by their infants' night waking. Further, mothers are susceptible to depressive symptoms during the postpartum period. Because sleep deprivation is known to have deleterious effects on mood, the sleep deprivation produced by infant night waking may contribute to postpartum depression.
Hence, to confirm this, Katherine Hildebrandt Karraker and Marion Young from the West Virginia University conducted this study examined the relations between night waking in infants and depressive symptoms in their mothers at 6 months postpartum. The data was collected from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care.
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