Mothers’ Trauma History Predicts Sleep Onset and Sleep Lability in Infants in the Early Post-Partum

• In Event: Parent and Child Sleep in the Context of Family Adversity

Abstract

The present study examined whether a history of trauma in mothers and fathers predicted the sleep patterns of infants in the early post-partum. There are, to date, no published studies on the putative impact of earlier trauma in parents on infant sleep. There may be good reason for examining such linkages. There is extensive literature documenting associations between trauma and sleep disruption in adults (Roche et al., 2022), and additional evidence that sleep in parents and young children is highly stable and intertwined (Teti, 2020). The present study examined prior parental trauma as a predictor of infant sleep characteristics at 3 months of age, examining parents’ sleep characteristics at 1-month as a mediator. It was hypothesized that predictive linkages between parents’ trauma history and infant sleep at 3-months would be indirect and mediated by mothers’ sleep at 1-month.

Data were drawn from an ongoing study of parent-infant sleep, coparenting, and first-year infant development (R01HD088566) (N = 210). Families were two-parent, pregnant with their first child, and 77% White, 9% Hispanic, 5.8% Asian, 4.8% Black, and 3.4% mixed-race. Information on prior trauma was obtained from each parent during the mothers’ 3rd trimester of pregnancy, using the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) (Weathers et al., 2013). This measure inquired about stressful events the parent had experienced and asked the parent to rate on a 5-point scale the degree to which they were bothered by the event (“repeated, disturbing, unwanted memories of the experience”). Mothers’ and fathers’ sleep-wake activity at 1-month post-partum was assessed with the Philips-Respironics Spectrum Plus actiwatches, worn by parents on their non-dominant wrist 24 hours/day for eight consecutive days. Infant sleep at 3-months was similarly assessed, with infants wearing their actiwatches on their lower calves continuously for eight consecutive days. Summary data on mean and variability of fall asleep time and number of minutes asleep across the night were extracted using Philips-Respironics software.

Mediation analyses were conducted using the Lavaan package in R (Rosseel, 2012), examining the longitudinal relationship between parents’ trauma history and infant sleep at 3 months, using parent sleep at 1-month as a mediator. Separate models were tested for mothers and fathers for each of the four sleep components, resulting in eight models. Results revealed that for mothers, trauma history was indirectly predicted all four infant sleep components at 3-months via maternal sleep at 1-month: mean total sleep minutes (Figure 1a), variability in total sleep minutes (Figure 1b), mean fall asleep time (Figure 1c), and variability in fall asleep time (Figure 1d). Interestingly fathers’ trauma history was not significantly linked to any father or infant sleep components.

Results support the hypothesis that parents’ trauma history would impact infant sleep via its more direct association with parent sleep, although this was found only for mothers, not fathers. Additional analyses will be conducted by conference time to further examine and understand these pathways, and their absence in fathers, focusing on parental bedtime and nighttime behavior with infants, parental depressive symptoms, and household chaos.

Authors

• Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Christine Kim, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Brian Crosby, Pennsylvania State University

• Kaitlin Marie Trexberg, Pennsylvania State University, University Park