Sleep and breathing in premature infants at 6 months post-natal age

Abstract

BackgroundPoor sleep contributes to the developmental problems seen in preterm infants. We evaluated sleep problems in preterm infants 6 months of post-gestational age using the subjective Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ) and objective sleep tests. We also compared the sleep of premature infants with that of full-term infants.MethodsThe study included 68 6-month-old full-term healthy infants and 191 premature infants born at <37 weeks gestation. All parents completed the BISQ-Chinese version and sleep diaries. At the same time, all premature infants were submitted to one night of polysomnography (PSG) in the sleep laboratory and also were set up with an actigraph kept for 7 days. Statistical analyses were performed using correlation coefficients and the t-test with SPSS version 18 to compare questionnaire responses with other subjective and objective measures of sleep.ResultsThe sleep problems indicated in the subjective questionnaire for the premature infants, particularly: “the nocturnal sleep duration, number of night awakenings, daytime sleep duration, duration of time with mouth breathing, and loud-noisy breathing” had significant correlations with sleep diaries, actigraphy and PSG results. The BISQ showed that duration of infant’s sleeping on one side, nocturnal sleep duration, being held to fall asleep, number of nighttime awakenings, daytime sleep duration, subjective consideration of sleep problems, loud-noisy breathing, and duration spent crying during the night were significantly different between the premature infants and the term infants. PSG confirmed the presence of a very high percentage (80.6%) of premature infants with AHI > 1 event/hour as indicated by the questionnaire.ConclusionPremature infants have more sleep problems than full-term infants, including the known risk of abnormal breathing during sleep, which has been well demonstrated already with the BISQ-Chinese (CBISQ).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12887-014-0303-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Periodic limb movements and restless legs syndrome in children with a history of prematurity

“…Preterm children are also at risk for more sleep disruption and sleep disorders such as OSAS. 13, 143 …”

Waking up too early – the consequences of preterm birth on sleep development

“…Longer nocturnal sleep duration, more night awakenings, and longer daytime sleep duration was also observed in 6‐month‐old infants born at an older age (31.5 ± 3.2 weeks GA, 1467 ± 588.6 g, mean±SD) compared to term control infants (Huang et al . ). The authors of this study did not evaluate neurodevelopmental disabilities, but did note that sleep disturbances were associated with respiratory problems (Huang et al .…”

“…The authors of this study did not evaluate neurodevelopmental disabilities, but did note that sleep disturbances were associated with respiratory problems (Huang et al . ).…”

Children born extremely preterm had different sleeping habits at 11 years of age and more childhood sleep problems than term‐born children

“…Preterm birth has been associated with an increased prevalence of later physical and mental morbidities and neurodevelopmental disabilities and the risk increases with decreasing gestational age (GA) and birthweight (BW) . Prematurely born children have also been reported to be at increased risk of sleep problems like nocturnal and early morning awakening , disturbed sleep due to sleep‐related breathing disorders and maybe the phenomenon known as advanced sleep phase . Not all previous studies have shown worse sleep outcomes among premature born children.…”