Insomnia in postpartum and perceived infant difficult temperament

Abstract

Introduction Insomnia is considered to be the most prevalent sleep disorder (Morin and Benca, 2012). It is associated with physical and mental health problems (Taylor et al., 2003). Yet, the prevalence of insomnia in the postpartum period and its association with infant’s difficult temperament are less explored (Stremler and Wolfson, 2011). The objectives of the present study were: 1) to determine the prevalence of insomnia in postpartum and 2) to investigate the association between mother’s insomnia and their perception of baby’s difficult temperament. Materials and methods A total of 103 mothers (M = 31.9, SD = 4.10 years) participated in the study at 3 months after delivery. The vast majority was married (68%), 71.7% were primiparae, 59.2% had boys and 64.1% were breastfeeding. Mothers answered a sleep questionnaire about insomnia symptoms (lot of difficulties falling asleep; woke up many times during the night; woke up too early in the morning and was unable to go back to sleep again) and insomnia daytime consequences (sleep problem interferes a lot with life and activities; due to sleep poorly feels tired, irritable, excited, nervous or depressed during the day) experienced in the previous month. The Difficult Infant Temperament Questionnaire was applied to assess infant emotional regulation difficulties (baby irritable or fussy, cries excessively, difficult to comfort or calm down) and infant sleeping problems (gives bad nights and has difficulties falling asleep). Mothers‘ depressive symptoms were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). Results It was observed that 39.2% of mothers were good sleepers, 36.3% had at least one insomnia symptom, 22.5% experienced insomnia (at least one insomnia symptom and two related insomnia daytime consequences) and 2% referred sleep daytime consequences without insomnia symptoms. In comparison to the good sleepers group, the insomnia group reported that their babies had more sleeping problems (M = 2.3, SD = 2.0 vs. M = 4.0, SD = 2.6, p = 0.030). Differences between sleep groups were not observed relatively to infant emotional regulation difficulties. The association between mother’s insomnia and their perception of infant sleeping problems was not present when cases of severe depressive symptoms (BDI-II total score ⩾9, quartile 75) were controlled/removed from the analysis. Conclusion Results of the present study suggest that the association between mother’s insomnia in postpartum and the perception of baby sleeping problems is mediated by mothers‘ depressive symptoms. Acknowledgement AstraZeneca Foundation.