Grant: Sleep and Circadian Rhythms: Operating Grant

Sleep apnea is a condition which disrupts sleep and leads to falls in blood oxygen and large swings in blood flow to the body's organs during sleep. Sleep apnea can develop or worsen during pregnancy. It has been proposed that sleep apnea in pregnant women might reduce the nourishment coming from the mother to the baby and therefore negatively affect the growth and development of the baby. However this has not yet been proven. The proposed study will compare the rate and severity of sleep apnea among two groups of women toward the end of pregnancy: those whose babies appear much smaller than expected for the stage of pregnancy on an ultrasound around 30 weeks of pregnancy, and women whose babies appear normal-sized on that ultrasound. The women will undergo one night of sleep recording at home to determine the presence and severity of sleep apnea. If the rate of sleep apnea is substantially higher among the women with smaller than expected infants, this will be taken as evidence pointing to a role for sleep apnea to reduced growth of the baby in the womb. This would be a potentially important finding in that sleep apnea during pregnancy is treatable, so that in future studies could be done to identify and treat sleep apnea during pregnancy, to determine whether this would lead to improved growth and development of babies in affected mothers.