Maternal sleep during pregnancy and adverse pregnancy outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Aims/Introduction: Sleep problems are important public health concern worldwide. We carried out a meta-analysis to quantitatively evaluate whether sleep duration was associated with pregnancy outcomes, and the associations were modified by important characteristics of studies. Materials and Methods: Based on PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases, we searched for published literature related to maternal sleep duration and adverse pregnancy outcomes before 30 June 2021. We carried out risk of bias assessment, subgroup analyses and sensitivity analysis. The relative risks or odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to estimate the pooled effects. Results: A total of 5,246 references were identified through a database search, and 41 studies were included in the study. Pregnant women with short sleep duration had 1.81-fold (95% CI 1.35–2.44, P < 0.001) the risk of developing gestational diabetes mellitus. The association between short sleep duration and the risk of gestational hypertension, cesarean section, low birthweight, preterm birth and small for gestational age were not significant (P > 0.05). Furthermore, long sleep duration was significantly correlated with gestational diabetes mellitus (odds ratio1.24. 95% CI 1.12–1.36, P < 0.001) and CS (odds ratio 1.13. 95% CI 1.04–1.22, P = 0.004), whereas long sleep duration was not linked with gestational hypertension, low birthweight, preterm birth and small for gestational age (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Short/long sleep duration appeared to be associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes, specifically with an increased risk of gestational diabetes mellitus. Sleep should be systematically screened in the obstetric population.