Importance of Sleep in Pregnancy

As humans we spend almost 1/3 of our lives asleep, so it is essential that we are maintaining healthy sleep habits. Healthy sleep habits have significant impacts on our mental, physical and emotional health. During pregnancy, women experience some of the largest challenges in their lives in relation to sleep.

What is healthy sleep?

Firstly, it is important to understand that sleep can be measured in terms of duration, continuation, type of sleep (REM and non-REM sleep), regularity, sleepiness during the day and sleep quality – that’s a lot right!!

Healthy sleep for adults is defined as 7 or more hours per night however, all these aspects of sleep work together to create a healthy sleeping pattern necessary for optimum functioning.

Sleep and Pregnancy:

Sleep disturbances are already more common in women than men, this is then further intensified during pregnancy. In the first trimester, women report increased night wakings, poorer sleep quality and more napping which, worsen as the pregnancy progresses.

There are many factors that lead to an increase in sleep quality during pregnancy including:

• Insomnia

• Restless leg syndrome

• Snoring

• Hormonal changes of oestrogen and progesterone

• Plus, the physical challenges of growing a baby (i.e. lungs and bladder)

• Increased depression, anxiety and stress in relation to the pregnancy, planning for childbirth, financial and relationship changes.

• Digital media (such as mobile phones) has been shown to decrease sleep and cause disrupted sleep

Why is sleep important for our health?

It goes without saying that sleep has significant impacts on maternal quality of life. However, poor sleep quality during pregnancy has been shown to increase the risk of preterm birth, gestational diabetes, small for gestational age babies and caesarean section. Some studies have also shown a link between poor sleep and changes to blood pressure regulation, which may increase the risk for gestational hypertension or pre-eclampsia.

Furthermore, poor sleep can increase perinatal mood and anxiety disorders as well as depressive symptoms. The links between poor sleep and dysregulated emotion thus, can lead to interpersonal distress and impacts to relationships. 

How can you improve your sleep?

As you can see sleep during pregnancy has massive impacts on our mental, physical and emotional health so, it is important to maximise your sleep duration and quality as best as you can. One of the best ways to maximise your sleep quality and duration is through using the Sleepybelly pregnancy pillow which has been specifically designed to help you find a comfortable sleep position with the back, side and tummy support. Therefore, enabling you to have a deeper, more restful sleep and improving your overall pregnancy health.

Use code ‘onemama10’ for 10% off Sleepybelly