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 When insomnia was to blame for women’s sleeping difficulties, they
were more than four times as likely as peers who slept well to
experience infertility, the study also found.
Previous research has linked what’s known as apnea, or disrupted
breathing during sleep, with infertility. But the current study
looked only at women with other types of sleep disorders, offering
fresh evidence of the need for women to pay close attention to
healthy habits that can help with sleep if they’re trying to
conceive, said lead study author Dr. I-Duo Wang of the Tri-Service
General Hospital and National Defense Medical Center in Taipei,
Taiwan.
“Women of child-bearing age should sleep earlier, avoid night shift
work or cellphone use before sleep,” Wang said by email. “Moreover,
a healthy diet, regular exercise and a good lifestyle are important
to prevent infertility.”
Roughly 1 in 10 women of childbearing age have difficulty getting
pregnant. Most of the time, it’s caused by problems with ovulation,
often related to a hormone imbalance known as polycystic ovarian
syndrome (PCOS). Some signs that a woman is not ovulating normally
include irregular or absent menstrual periods.
Less common causes of infertility in women can include blocked
fallopian tubes, structural problems with the uterus or uterine
fibroids.
The risk increases with age, and can also be exacerbated by smoking,
excessive drinking, stress, an unhealthy diet, too much exercise,
being overweight or obese or having sexually transmitted infections.
For the study, researchers examined data on 16,718 women newly
diagnosed with sleep disorders between 2000 and 2010 in Taiwan as
well as a comparison group of 33,436 similar women who didn’t have
sleep problems.
At the start of the study, women were about 35 years old, on
average, although they ranged in age from 20 to 45.
After an average follow-up of about five years, 29 participants with
sleep disorders had developed infertility, as had 34 women in the
comparison group.
Before researchers accounted for age and women’s other medical
problems, participants with sleep disorders were about 2.7 times
more likely to experience infertility, researchers report in the
journal Sleep.
Once the study team factored in women’s age and other health issues,
participants with sleep disorders were 3.7 times more likely to
experience infertility.
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Women with sleep disorders were also more likely to have a variety
of chronic health problems, including high blood pressure, elevated
cholesterol, lung disorders and kidney issues. With sleep disorders,
participants were also more likely to have irregular menstrual
cycles, thyroid issues, depression and anxiety.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether
or how sleep disorders might directly cause infertility.
For its size, the study also included very few women with
infertility. Another limitation is that the researchers lacked data
on a variety of factors that can impact fertility like smoking,
drinking and exercise habits as well as socioeconomic status and
family medical history, the authors note.
“We still have a lot to learn about how exactly sleep disorders
confer risk for infertility,” said Jennifer Felder, a researcher at
the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn’t involved in
the study.
Even so, the results suggest that women can add infertility to the
long list of health reasons to get help when they can’t fall or stay
asleep.
“Although we do not yet know whether treating sleep disorders
improves fertility, treatment may help and is not likely to hurt,”
Felder said by email. “Cognitive behavior therapy is recommended as
the first line of treatment approach for insomnia, which was the
most prevalent sleep disorder in this sample, and it is available
in-person with a therapist or via digital applications or self-help
workbooks.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2BvvF7c Sleep, online November 9, 2017.
(In paragraph 9, corrects the average age at the start of the
study.)
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