Does sleep influence weight gain during pregnancy? A prospective study

Objective The focus of this study was to evaluate the associations between subjective sleep quality and duration and weight gain during pregnancy.

Methods A prospective and longitudinal study was conducted with 63 pregnant women. Pregnant women were evaluated at the first, second and third trimester for subjective sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI]) and anthropometric variables for body mass index [BMI] calculation. The sleep quality was grouped per cluster, identifying those individuals who maintained, improved or worsened their sleep quality, based on the PSQI classifications. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) were used to examine the association between sleep and BMI over the pregnancy period.

Results An effect of the interaction between time of pregnancy and clusters of sleep quality was observed on the BMI (p<0.05), which indicates that pregnant women who improved subjective sleep quality during pregnancy gained more weight from the second to third trimester, while those that worsened the subjective sleep quality gained more weight during the first to second trimester. Sleep duration was not associated with weight gain. However, pregnant women who maintained the same BMI category over the pregnancy period increased their sleep duration from the first to third trimester, while those that increased the BMI category slept the same amount of time during this period (median=1.0 [0.0-2.0] and median=0.0 [-2.0-1.0], respectively, p=0.039).

Conclusions The authors concluded that a worse subjective sleep quality seems to lead to an inadequate weight gain distribution during the period of pregnancy.

Weight Gain - Pregnancy - Sleep - Body Mass Index

Ethical Committee Permission: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Uberlândia (CAAE: 43473015.4.0000.5152/2015). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Publication History

Received: 27 November 2018

Accepted: 03 May 2019

Article published online:
31 October 2023

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