Daily Sleep and Fatigue Characteristics in Nulliparous Women during the Third Trimester of Pregnancy

Objectives: To examine the association among nighttime sleep and daytime napping behaviors, depressive symptoms, and perception of fatigue in pregnant women. Design: A prospective descriptive study with within-subject design. Setting: A university-affiliated hospital and participants' home environments. Participants: Thirty-eight third trimester nulliparous women completed sleep and depressive symptom questionnaires, wore a wrist actigraphy monitor for 7 consecutive days, and kept a concurrent diary reporting naps and rating their level of fatigue using a 0-10 visual analogue scale each morning, midday, afternoon, and evening. A generalized estimating equation regression model was applied to evaluate the time-dependent association. Interventions: N/A. Measurements and Results: Mean duration of total nighttime sleep by actigraphy was 386.3 +/- 60.7 min, with 11 (28.9%) women having an average total nighttime sleep < 6 h. Nineteen women (50%) napped > 3 days, and only 2 women did not nap over the entire week. Antecedent night sleep duration had a significant inverse association with morning (P = 0.022) and afternoon fatigue (P = 0.009) of the subsequent day. Self-reported naps were significantly associated with midday fatigue (P = 0.003). More depressive symptoms predicted more severe fatigue throughout the day. Conclusions: Results suggest that interventions designed to increase sleep duration and decrease depressive symptoms have the potential to prevent, ameliorate, or reduce fatigue in pregnant women. Depressive symptoms during pregnancy likely share some psychological and behavioral tendencies with fatigue and/or sleep disturbance which may complicate the evaluation of intervention effect.