Findings of the study, conducted byU-M sleep expert Roseanne Armitage, Ph.D., are significant because they show that sleep and biological rhythms disturbances persist at least through the first eight months of life in the infants of depressed mothers.
Results indicate that infants born to mothers with depression had significant sleep disturbances compared to low-risk infants. The high-risk group, those with moms suffering postpartum depression,took up to 2 hours more to settle for night time sleep, woke up more often and had more daytime sleep than infants who were born to mothers without depression attwo weeks and 30 weeks postpartum.
“We think we may have identified a vulnerability in the initial entrainment of sleep and circadian rhythms that may elevate the risk for these children to develop later depression,” Armitage says. “Our task now is to determine if it is modifiable. Can we reverse the effects and reduce the risk of developing later depression by enriching sleep and circadian rhythms in infancy? ”
I can say that I had PPD with my son and he was a horrible sleeper. He had to eat every 2 hours on the dot and by the time he was fed, changed, and gotten back to sleep he was due for another feeding in a matter of 15-30 minutes. I was suffering not only from PPD but severe sleep deprivation with him. I was so glad when we were able to figure out how to get him to sleep 5 hours a night straight. Even when he was 18 months old and tried to move him into his own room when we moved, it still took us a year to get him to stay in his bed all night and get himself back to sleep.
I did NOT have PPD with my daughter and she slept excellent from the day we brought her home and started sleeping through the night at least 5 hours at a time STRAIGHT at about a month old. She sleeps wonderfully now at 10 months old, sleeps about 9-12 hours a night depending on when she goes to bed and hasn't had that early morning bottle in quite a few months…thanks to her not to me.
I always attributed my depression (or lack there of) partly due to the way they slept…but I could definitely see that it could be the other way around or at least go hand in hand. This really deserves more study!!!