Department of Psychology, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-6040, USA.
Sleep. 2013 Jan 1;36(1):73-81. doi: 10.5665/sleep.2304.
Sleep disturbances cause neurobehavioral performance and daytime functioning impairments. Postpartum women experience high levels of sleep disturbance. Thus, the study objective was to describe and explore the relation between neurobehavioral performance and sleep among women during the early postpartum period.
Longitudinal field-based study.
There were 70 primiparous women and nine nulliparous women in a control group.
None.
During their first 12 postpartum weeks, 70 primiparous women wore continuous wrist actigraphy to objectively monitor their sleep. Each morning they self-administered the psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) to index their neurobehavioral performance. Nine nulliparous women in a control group underwent the same protocol for 12 continuous weeks. Postpartum PVT mean reciprocal (1/RT) reaction time did not differ from that of women in the control group at postpartum week 2, but then worsened over time. Postpartum slowest 10% 1/RT PVT reaction time was significantly worse than that of women in the control group at all weeks. Despite improvements in postpartum sleep, neurobehavioral performance continued to worsen from week 2 through the end of the study. Across the first 12 postpartum weeks, PVT measures were more frequently associated with percent sleep compared with total sleep time, highlighting the deleterious consequences of sleep disruption on maternal daytime functioning throughout the early postpartum period.
Worsened maternal neurobehavioral performance across the first 12 postpartum weeks may have been influenced by the cumulative effects of sleep disturbance. These results can inform future work to identify the particular sleep profiles that could be primary intervention targets to improve daytime functioning among postpartum women, and indicate need for further research on the effectiveness of family leave policies. The time when postpartum women return to control-level daytime functioning is unknown.
睡眠障碍会导致神经行为表现和日间功能障碍。产后女性经历高水平的睡眠障碍。因此，研究目的是描述和探讨产后早期女性的神经行为表现与睡眠之间的关系。
纵向现场研究。
70 名初产妇和 9 名对照组的初产妇。
无。
在产后的 12 周内，70 名初产妇佩戴连续腕部动作记录仪客观监测睡眠。每天早上，她们会自行进行精神运动警觉性测试（PVT），以评估她们的神经行为表现。对照组的 9 名初产妇在连续 12 周内接受了相同的方案。产后 PVT 平均倒数（1/RT）反应时间在产后第 2 周与对照组女性无差异，但随后随时间恶化。产后最慢的 10%1/RT PVT 反应时间在所有周都明显差于对照组女性。尽管产后睡眠有所改善，但神经行为表现从第 2 周开始持续恶化到研究结束。在产后的头 12 周内，PVT 测量值与睡眠百分比的相关性比总睡眠时间更频繁，这突出表明睡眠中断对产妇白天功能的有害影响贯穿整个产后早期。
产后 12 周内母亲神经行为表现恶化可能受到睡眠障碍累积效应的影响。这些结果可以为未来的工作提供信息，以确定可能成为改善产后女性日间功能的主要干预目标的特定睡眠模式，并表明需要进一步研究家庭休假政策的有效性。产后女性恢复到日间正常功能的时间尚不清楚。
