New moms get enough sleep, just not good sleep

Contrary to popular belief, new mothers may often get a decent amount of sleep in their babies' first few months -- but it's not a good-quality sleep, a new study suggests.
The study, which followed a group of new moms, found that on average, the women got just over 7 hours of sleep per night during their babies' first four months. That is within what's generally recommended for adults, and, based on past studies, more than the average American gets.
On the other hand, the study found, that sleep is also frequently disrupted -- with the women typically being awake for a total of two hours overnight.
The finding may not sound surprising, especially to parents. But the study does challenge a central assumption about new mothers' typical sleep patterns, according to lead researcher Dr. Hawley E. Montgomery-Downs, an assistant professor of psychology at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
That assumption, she told Reuters Health, has been that most new moms are sleep-deprived -- that is, not getting enough hours of sleep.
So the advice on how to combat daytime fatigue has focused on countering sleep deprivation, Montgomery-Downs said -- such as the age-old adage to "nap when your baby naps."
But the current results, reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, suggest that new mothers' highly fragmented sleep is what's behind their daytime fatigue.


That sleep pattern, Montgomery-Downs said, is similar to what's seen with certain sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, where people log enough hours in bed, but get little restorative, good-quality sleep.
Sleep occurs in repeated cycles that each last about 90 minutes to two hours. Depending on how often a new mom is waking up, she may get few or no full cycles of sleep, Montgomery-Downs noted.
And a quick daytime nap is unlikely to counter that.
"We need to think about what kinds of strategies can help consolidate sleep" for these mothers, Montgomery-Downs said. One tactic, she suggested, could be for breastfeeding moms to find time to pump milk and store it in bottles so that they do not have to be the ones to always get up with the baby.
And while quick naps might not do much, Montgomery-Downs noted that "if you're one of the lucky parents" whose infants typically nap for at least two straight hours, taking that time to sleep could be helpful.
The findings are based on 74 new mothers who were followed between either the second and 13th week of their infants' lives, or between the 9th and 16th week. The women kept track of their sleep patterns using sleep "diaries," and also wore a wristwatch-like device called an actigraph that recorded their movements during the night.
Contrary to expectations, the researchers found that the women's average sleep time was about what it should be, at 7.2 hours. Instead, sleep fragmentation was the issue.
Relatively few mothers tried napping as a countermeasure. By the third week of their infants' lives, less than half of the women in the study said they napped, and among those who did, the average was twice per week.
Daytime fatigue, a problem reported by many new mothers in other studies, is a concern for several reasons, according to Montgomery-Downs. One is that, in some women, sleep problems and exhaustion may contribute to postpartum depression.
Beyond that, Montgomery-Downs said, fatigue can also hinder people's ability to drive safely or hurt their performance at work.
She argued that mothers' fragmented sleep and daytime fatigue call for a reconsideration of maternity work leave in the U.S. Right now, national policy states that workplaces with 50 or more employees have to offer up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave; the U.S. is the only Western country that does not mandate some amount of paid parental leave.
So many women, Montgomery-Downs said, may have to go back to work at a time when "they should really be taking care of themselves."
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/vyp28n

Worried about how much your kid worries?

Tania Day knows she’s a world-class worry wart. You name it, she worries about. Finances. Check. The environment. Check. The recession. Check. 

And it seems her 5-year-old son, Ian, worries about the same things, too. His latest angst: the BP oil spill, which he fears will invade his favorite stream. He also has some major concerns about the family budget and that mom may be spending too much money at the grocery store. “He’s becoming a worry magnet, just like me,” says Day, a 39-year-old stay-at-home mom from Cleveland, Ohio, who has struggled with anxiety most of her adult life. “Now I worry about why he worries.”
That’s a lot of worry.
The good news for little Ian is that fretful DNA isn’t necessarily destiny, at least according to a study of anxious monkeys.
In research published in the journal Nature Wednesday, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health looked at how genetic and environmental factors affect the part of the brain that make us anxious.
The study involved 238 related rhesus monkeys, all of which underwent PET scans. The anxiety-ridden monkeys showed extra brain activity in both the amygdala, an almond-shaped brain structure associated with the processing of emotions like fear and pleasure, and the anterior hippocampus, a brain area associated with memory. (Turns out that anxious monkeys are similar to anxious kids — they're shy, inhibited and they've got high levels of the stress hormone, cortisol.)
But it was largely the type of anxiety seen in the hippocampus that seemed to be hereditary.
“We’re really excited about this because what this study is saying is, sure, we inherit some traits from family, but how we process the environment is really important, too,” says Dr. Ned H. Kalin, a psychiatrist and the lead author, who estimates that (at least in monkeys) only about 35 percent of anxiety risk is inherited. Early nurturing, he suspects, plays a bigger role.
Since scientists could predict which monkeys were more prone to anxiety by looking at the brain activity on the scans, the hope is to translate those research finding to young children at risk “before anxiety takes over their lives,” says Kalin, who also heads U-W Madison’s HealthEmotion Research Institute. 
About one in eight kids are affected by some type of anxiety problem, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. When left untreated, anxiety issues can affect school performance, social relationships and lead to drug and alcohol abuse.
If childhood symptoms are extreme, Kalin suggests getting professional help. For kids who are in the more moderate range, parents can help by talking to their kids about their fears and encouraging them to try things they may be afraid of. “Anxiety has always been around, but we live in a more complex world, and it seems these issues are more prevalent,” says Kalin. “But people are also more willing to talk, and that’s healthy.”
Day has already spoken to her doctor about her concerns. And she’s following his advice. She and her husband no longer discuss finances, the environment or other “worrisome things,” in front of Ian or her other two kids, Gabi, 8, and Bryce, 3, neither of whom exhibit any anxiety issues.
Instead, they’re spending a lot more time playing together as a family, and “actually enjoying the environment and each other,” says Day, who recently got a hint this new strategy may be working. “Ian told me I needed to chill a little bit,” she says, with a laugh. “That was awesome.”

By Joan Raymond
Joan Raymond is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times, MORE and Woman's Day.