PREGNANT women should try to sleep on their sides to lower the risk of stillbirth, a new study has found.
Experts from the University of Huddersfield are warning mums-to-be to avoid snoozing on their backs.
Dr Tomasina Stacey is a reader of Midwifery Practice at the uni and she’s been looking into what effect – if any – the sleeping position has on stillbirth risk.
And her findings are now forming part of the official NHS guidance designed to reduce the number of stillbirths in the UK.
Around nine babies are stillborn a day – one in 225 births.
Dr Stacey found that the small proportion of pregnant women who sleep on their backs did run a higher risk, because the weight of the uterus can reduce blood flow to the baby.
The latest included 851 bereaved mothers and 2,257 women with ongoing pregnancy and has now been published by The Lancet.
Scientists found that going to sleep lying on the back from 28 weeks of pregnancy increased the risk of stillbirth by 2.6 times.
This heightened risk occurred regardless of the other known risk factors for stillbirth.
UK charity Tommy’s has now included Dr Stacey’s findings about sleep position in its advice to pregnant women.
Stillbirth risks
Although rates are getting lower in the UK, Croatia, Poland and Czech Republic all have better stillbirth rates than UK.
60 per cent of cases are unexplained, meaning that doctors couldn’t tell the parents why the tragedy had occurred.
But there are some things that can make it more likely:
- In women with a high BMI (over 26) the risk of stillbirth increases by around 20 per cent with every 5 extra BMI points on the scale
- In women who smoke during pregnancy, the risk of stillbirth goes up depending on how much is smoked:
- the risk of stillbirth is 52 per cent higher in pregnant women who smoked 10 or more
- the risk of stillbirth was 9 per cent higher for those smoking one to nine cigarettes a day
- In women with a previous stillbirth, the risk of another increases four times, from 1 per cent to 2.5 per cent
Source: Tommy’s
The NHS has also incorporated the findings in its Saving Babies’ Lives care bundle.
The care bundle states: “In later pregnancy (after 28 weeks), it is safer to go to sleep on your side than on your back”.
It advises midwives and GPs to “encourage women to settle on their side when they go to sleep or have a day-time nap, rather than on their back. A woman who wakes up on her back shouldn’t worry, but should settle to sleep again her side”.
“We decided to look at a range of modifiable risk factors and this was one of them,” said Dr Stacey.
“The next phase is to ensure that there is consistent advice from healthcare professionals and we will be looking to see if there are ways of helping to support women to sleep in the side position.”
In later pregnancy (after 28 weeks), it is safer to go to sleep on your side than on your back
NHS care bundle
She concluded that most women were perfectly happy to change their sleeping position if it was going to be better for their babies.
This isn’t the first time that sleep has been linked to the health of unborn babies.
A study conducted by the University of Michigan last year found that sleeping more than nine hours per night during pregnancy may be associated with late stillbirth.
The findings suggest mums-to-be who wake up in the night are “protected” from stillbirth.
“Pregnant women often report waking up and getting up in the middle of the night,” said Louise O’Brien, lead author of the study at Michigan Medicine.
“While multiple awakenings during the night may concern some women, in the context of stillbirth it appears to be protective.”
She explained that blood pressure reaches its lowest point during sleep but when someone is awakened, there is a surge in the nervous system activity that causes transient increases in blood pressure.
MORE ON PREGNANCY
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News Photo Pregnant women who sleep on their backs ‘DOUBLE their risk of stillbirth’
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