Night shifts during pregnancy linked to heightened risk of young child's neurodevelopmental abnormalities
Working night shifts during pregnancy is linked to a heightened risk of neurodevelopmental abnormalities detected by screening in the child by the age of 4, finds research published online in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.
Night shifts during pregnancy are associated with a higher risk of neurodevelopmental abnormalities in children by the age of 4, according to research published in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. However, the length of prenatal sleep may modify this association. The study, which analyzed data from 100,000 pregnant women in Japan, found that continued night shifts during pregnancy were linked to higher risks of issues in communication skills (29% higher risk), fine motor skills (34% higher risk), and personal-social functioning (31% higher risk) compared to mothers who did not work night shifts.
Discontinuing night shifts was only linked to a 24% higher risk of fine motor skill abnormalities. The researchers suggest that maternal inflammation associated with persistent night work may particularly affect neural pathways involved in fine motor function. However, the study cannot establish causation and acknowledges limitations such as not accounting for shift rotation systems and individual chronotype.
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