Anti-Inflammatory Diet in Pregnancy Linked to Better Postpartum Sleep

Women with overweight or obesity who consume an anti-inflammatory diet during pregnancy and postpartum exhibit better sleep, according to results of a study published in Behavioral Sleep Medicine.

Poor sleep quality is one of the most common postpartum complaints, with women obtaining 50 to 90 minutes less sleep in the first 6 months after delivery compared with the third trimester.

Researchers conducted a secondary analysis of the Health in Pregnancy and Postpartum (HIPP; ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02260518) study, a randomized controlled trial investigating a lifestyle intervention among pregnant women with obesity. A total of 219 women with a prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) of 25 and higher were recruited within the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.

[C]linical interventions aimed at improving dietary choices and reducing inflammation both during pregnancy and early postpartum may hold promise for positively impacting postpartum sleep quality and quantity.

The participants reported their dietary habits using the National Cancer Institute’s Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour (ASA24®) Dietary Assessment Tool at 16 and 32 weeks’ gestation and wore a BodyMedia’s SenseWear® armband for 8 consecutive days at 6 and 12 months postpartum. The ASA24 data were used to calculate Energy-adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index (E-DII™) scores, which were analyzed in relation to sleep outcomes.

The women with anti-inflammatory (n=54), neutral (n=109), and proinflammatory (n=86) dietary habits — of whom 32%, 52%, and 42% were Black and 38%, 41%, and 49% were nulliparous, respectively — had mean ages of 31.6, 29.5, and 28.7 years (P <.01) and mean BMIs of 34.1, 34.8, and 34.8, respectively.

At 6 months postpartum, women with an anti-inflammatory diet had an earlier bedtime

(median, 11:11 PM; P =.04) than those with neutral (median, 11:25 PM) or proinflammatory (median, 11:41 PM) diets. Similarly, an anti-inflammatory diet was associated with an earlier waketime at 6 months (median, 6:51 AM; P =.03) compared with neutral (median, 7:06 AM) or proinflammatory (median, 7:20 AM) diets.

The researchers observed no other significant trends in sleep patterns at 6 or 12 months based on diet quality or E-DII scores. However, higher E-DII scores in early pregnancy were associated with longer sleep latency (b, 0.57; P =.03).

The researchers also identified significant interactions between change in diet and intervention for bedtime (P <.01) and sleep duration (P =.04). Among women who received the intervention (n=112), every 1 unit increase in E-DII score change during pregnancy was associated with a 7.3 minute earlier bedtime in postpartum (P =.01). Higher E-DII scores at baseline were associated with 10.25 minute later bedtime in postpartum (P =.01), and every 1-point increase in E-DII change during pregnancy was associated with an additional 5 minutes of sleep in postpartum (P =.03). These trends were not observed in the control group.

Study limitations include missing data from 18 food parameters.

The study authors concluded, “If, indeed, diet during pregnancy influences sleep, clinical interventions aimed at improving dietary choices and reducing inflammation both during pregnancy and early postpartum may hold promise for positively impacting postpartum sleep quality and quantity.”