Mom's Poor Sleep During Late Stage Pregnancy Can Impact Baby's Weight

We all know that sleep is important. But did you know that it can affect your offspring? Researchers have discovered the poor-quality sleep during the third trimester of pregnancy can increase the odds of weight gain and metabolic abnormalities in offspring once they research adulthood.

"Disrupted sleep is a common problem during the final trimester of a pregnancy," said David Gozal, one of the researchers, in a news release. "For some women, sleep fragmentation, especially sleep apnea, can be profound. We wanted to devise a system that enabled us to measure the potential impact of fragmented sleep on the fetus, which is uniquely susceptible so early in life."

In order to better understand how a lack of sleep might impact a developing fetus, the researchers examined pregnant mice. More specifically, they interrupted sleep for half of the mice during days 15 through 19 of pregnancy, which is the mouth equivalent of the third trimester; they swept a motorized brush through the cages every two minutes, forcing the mice to briefly wake, step over the brush and then go back to sleep.

While newborns in both groups weighed the same at first and initially had normal feeding habits, there were later consequences.

"For several weeks after weaning all the mice seemed fine," said Gozal in a news release. "But after 16 to 18 weeks-the mouse equivalent of early middle age-we noticed that the male mice born to moms with fragmented sleep were eating more. Their weights started creeping up."

In fact, the researchers found a 10 percent increase in obesity-which would be about 15 extra pounds in a human adult. But those weren't the only health problems the scientists witnessed. They also noticed that these offspring from sleep-deprived mothers scored poorly on glucose-tolerance tests and had disproportionately high amounts of visceral white adipose tissue and their fat cells produced less adiponectin, which is usually a "beneficial hormone."

The findings reveal the importance of getting enough sleep. Currently, scientists want to learn whether these traits will be passed onto future generations, or if they're only present in the children on sleep-deprived mothers.

The findings are published in the journal Diabetes.