The habit of snoring after conceiving a child may mean pregnancy related complications like high blood pressure and preeclampsia, researchers say.
Lead author Dr. Louise O'Brien and colleagues looked at more than 1,700 pregnant women and found snoring during pregnancy posing high risks to maternal cardiovascular health (25 percent), compared to non-snoring women.
"We found that frequent snoring was playing a role in high blood pressure problems, even after we had accounted for other known risk factors," O'Brien, associate professor in University of Michigan's Sleep Disorders Center, said. "And we already know that high blood pressure in pregnancy, particularly preeclampsia, is associated with smaller babies, higher risks of pre-term birth or babies ending up in the ICU."
The researchers recommend pregnant women with sleep-disorders to treat the condition with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), a machine worn during sleep that helps to keep the airways open.
After reaching the conclusion, researchers hope their findings to help pregnant women in solving their hypertensive disorders and other pregnancy related complications.
"Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a leading global cause of maternal and infant deaths and cost billions of dollars annually to treat," O'Brien explained. "By asking pregnant women about snoring, especially in those with high blood pressure already, obstetric healthcare providers could identify women at high risk for sleep-disordered breathing and intervene during the pregnancy. This could result in better outcomes for mother and baby."
The study was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Having a sound sleep is essential for having a healthy pregnancy and a baby. A study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology recently found experiencing sleep apnea during pregnancy leading to many complications like preeclampsia and cesarean birth.
Apart from that, the newborns of the women affected with sleep apnea were found at higher risks of being admitted to the neonatal intensive care (NICU), mainly for respiratory distress.
