BACKGROUND & AIMS: Maternal metabolic disturbance arising from inappropriate meal timing or sleep deprivation may disrupt circadian rhythm, potentially inducing pregnancy complications. We examined the associations of maternal night-time eating and sleep duration during pregnancy with gestation length and preterm birth.
METHODS: We studied 673 pregnant women from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort. Maternal energy intake by time of day and nightly sleep duration were assessed at 26-28 weeks' gestation. Based on 24-h dietary recall, night-eating was defined as consuming >50% of total energy intake from 1900 to 0659 h. Short sleep duration was defined as <6 h night sleep. Night-eating and short sleep were simultaneously analyzed to examine for associations with a) gestation length using multiple linear regression, and b) preterm birth (<37 weeks' gestation) using logistic regression.
RESULTS: Overall, 15.6% women engaged in night-eating, 12.3% had short sleep and 6.8% delivered preterm. Adjusting for confounding factors, night-eating was associated with 0.45 weeks shortening of gestation length (95% CI -0.75, -0.16) and 2.19-fold higher odds of delivering preterm (1.01, 4.72). Short sleep was associated with 0.33 weeks shortening of gestation length (-0.66, -0.01), but its association with preterm birth did not reach statistical significance (1.81; 0.76, 4.30).
CONCLUSIONS: During pregnancy, women with higher energy consumption at night than during the day had shorter gestation and greater likelihood of delivering preterm. Misalignment of eating time with day-night cycles may be a contributing factor to preterm birth. This points to a potential target for intervention to reduce the risk of preterm birth. Observations for nightly sleep deprivation in relation to gestation length and PTB warrant further confirmation.
