Naps during pregnancy may be linked with healthier birth weight

(Reuters Health) - Pregnant women who nap regularly may reduce their baby's risk of low birth weight, a study from China suggests.

“Low birth weight is one of the feared outcomes of pregnancy, and novel insight into risk factors is welcome,” said Dr. Ghada Bourjeily, a sleep researcher at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island, who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Sleep, its quality, and duration are emerging as risk factors for various perinatal complications,” Bourjeily said in an email.

Low birth weight, defined as less than 5.5 pounds (2500 grams), is associated with adverse health outcomes in childhood and adulthood, including respiratory illnesses, diabetes and hypertension. In the U.S., about 8 percent of babies have low birth weight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lulu Song of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan and colleagues analyzed information from more than 10,000 women who were participating in the 2012-2014 Healthy Baby Cohort study in China. The group included 442 women who had low birth weight babies, the authors reported in the journal Sleep Medicine.

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