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Your Sleep Position May Save Your Unborn Baby's Life
Filed under: In The News, Pregnancy Health
Study shows pregnant women who sleep on their left side reduce the risk of stillbirths. Credit: Getty Images
Researchers in New Zealand tell U.S. News & World Report pregnant women who sleep on their left side reduce the risk of stillbirths. In fact, they warn, women who sleep in other positions sometimes double the risk of having a stillborn infant.
"This is a new and potentially exciting hypothesis, but further research is required before all women are advised to sleep on their left side in late pregnancy," lead researcher Tomasina Stacey, a graduate student in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Auckland, tells the magazine.
What's the big deal with sleeping on your left side? Experts tell U.S. News it has to do with improved blood flow to the fetus. Still, that's just a theory, which is why researchers are looking into it.
They interviewed 155 women who had a stillborn infant after at least 28 weeks of gestation and compared these women with 310 pregnant women with routine ongoing pregnancies.
U.S. News reports the women were asked about their sleep position during the last month of their pregnancy, the last week of their pregnancy and on the night they believed the stillbirth occurred.
The women also were asked about snoring, daytime sleepiness, if they regularly slept during the day during the last month of pregnancy, how much sleep they got at night and how many times a night they got up to use the toilet.
None of the the other factors provided a connection. But researchers found a link between sleep positions and the number of stillbirths. Not a big link, but a link.
Stillbirths occurred in roughly two out of every 1,000 pregnancies among women who slept on their left side -- versus approximately four out of every 1,000 pregnancies.
"This is an interesting finding, but we should be cautious about making a large jump to saying that this is the cause of stillbirth," Lucy Chappell, a clinical senior lecturer in Maternal and Fetal Medicine in the division of women's health at King's College London, tells U.S. News. "And we should not rush out to run a large campaign to say pregnant women should sleep on their left side."
Even the study's leader agrees with that.
"An observational study such as this cannot determine cause-and-effect but it has identified an area that urgently requires further exploration," Stacey tells the magazine.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
6-15-2011 @ 2:18PM
David Bychkov said...I would be interested in reading any articles or NIH/NIMH polysomnography studies on pregnant women's dreams REM cycles and the health of their newborns. If anyone has any links to those, please post them.
Reply
6-16-2011 @ 10:31AM
MomofDnNnD said...I don't see how this is NEW news. All three of my doctors told me this when I was pregnant with each of my three children. The first one was back in 1994. Do they just recycle news and pretend it's new?!
Reply
6-15-2011 @ 4:19PM
pmck said...4 pregnancies, slept on my left side (only way i can sleep). 4 healthy 8lb + babies. The more articles I read the more I marvel at how my kids have survived this long. (They're all teenagers now)
Reply
6-15-2011 @ 10:33PM
S.B. said...The article says sleeping on your left side lowers the risk. I know my ob with all 4 of my pregnancies told me to sleep on my left side which I did though I am tummy sleeper. I bought a pregnancy pillow to make me sleep on the left. Even the pregnancy books tell you left side is better. This is really nothing new.
Reply
6-15-2011 @ 5:17PM
Kim said...I was told with my first pregnacy 27 years ago that sleeping on the left side was better for the baby. I have had 3 children my youngest is 11 and I am still on my left side. The only comfortable position for me.
Reply
6-15-2011 @ 5:44PM
Squiggles said...I have 4 kids; with my first one I slept mostly on my back, even though they say it isn't good for the baby when you're pregnant, but how am I supposed to control how I move when I'm asleep? I had twins the second time around; my huge belly forced me to sleep on my side, but I just switched to whichever side was more comfortable. In my last pregnancy I also slept mostly on either side. They never told me that sleeping on my left side would be better for the baby, but since I had edema in my legs they said to lie on my left side with feet elevated because it facilitated drainage better. They also always put me on my left side to rest if my blood pressure was higher than usual, so there must be something to lying on your left side, either way you slice it.
Reply
7-27-2011 @ 9:58PM
Monica said...At times when i sleep , then awake i tend to wake up on my stomach sometimes , Why is that? I have Cravings Like a Baby every 2 -3 hours ,is that normal?
Reply