Sleep Apnea and Pregnancy

Women who have sleep apnea face a greater risk of health problems during pregnancy. New studies have emerged linking sleep apnea with various health problems such as preeclampsia, a very dangerous condition of high blood pressure during pregnancy. Women who experience preeclampsia will more likely give birth by ceasarian section rather than normally. In a new study led by author Dr. Judette Louis, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Florida, the risk for preeclampsia reportedly doubles for women who are obese. The research team gave a portable home-sleep testing device to 175 obese pregnant women. The device showed that 15% of the women had sleep apnea, and that these women were more overweight and had chronic high blood pressure as compared to those who tested negative for sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea puts not only the mother’s life at risk, but also that of her baby. The same study analyzed more than 150 live births by women with sleep apnea and found that babies born to these mothers were more likely to be admitted into the neonatal intensive care unit due to respiratory distress.

Another scary health problem which can arise during pregnancy is gestational diabetes. Research shows that women who have sleep apnea face a greater risk for gestational diabetes and the risk doubles when the woman is obese.

Aside from obesity, another reason pregnant women may be at risk for sleep apnea is due to the many hormonal changes that the body undergoes during pregnancy. Weight gain and hormonal imbalance may all contribute to difficulty in breathing.

With all this information at hand, it has become more important than ever to screen pregnant women for sleep apnea to protect mother and baby. 

How Technology Contributes to Lack of Sleep

Technology is great. It brings people from all over the world closer to one another. Jobs and other tasks are made easier. And the economy is stimulated from all of the new developments that regularly come out of the realm of technology. While the benefits seem endless, there is such a thing as too much technology. And this applies in the bedroom.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than ninety percent of Americans are regularly on the computer or some other kind of electronic device within the hour before we go to sleep. We know it’s tempting to check your newsfeed on Facebook or send a few emails and text messages during the downtime right before bed, but doing so can hurt your healthy sleep cycle. Here’s why: Electronic devices are known to stimulate brain activity, and not surprisingly, disrupt your ability to fall asleep. In addition, the artificial light that comes from the screen of some devices may mess around with the brain chemicals that promote sleep.

A recent study from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute investigated how exposure to light from certain electronic devices affects our hormones tied to sleep. The subjects were studied as they read, played games, and watched movies on an iPad, iPad 2, or PC tablet for various amounts of time. While they were doing these various activities, researchers were measuring the amount of light the subjects’ eyes received.

The results were unmistakable. Researchers found that exposure to light from computer tablets significantly reduced levels of melatonin, a hormone that regulates our internal clocks and plays a significant role in our sleep cycles. They determined that just two hours of exposure to a bright tablet screen at night reduced melatonin levels by about twenty-two percent. This is scarily important because the suppression of melatonin can mean all kinds of bad things health-wise, such as sleep disturbances, and even raising the risk of obesity, diabetes, and other disorders.

We know that it can be hard to cut down your use of electronics, but if you find yourself tossing and turning at night trying to fall asleep, then it’s worth a try to turn off the TV earlier and set down your phone long before you sleep. Other things you can do include limiting your computer use before bed—Facebook will be there in the morning. At the very least, you should at least dim the screen as much as possible so that the contrast between the screen and the dark isn’t so striking. When it comes down to it, studies have shown that using your electronic devices before sleep can greatly contribute to a lack of sleep by altering your hormones and reducing melatonin levels.

How Diet & Fitness Help You Sleep

If you’ve been keeping up with our blog, or if you’ve been paying attention to the latest health articles on the Web, you know how important sleep is—how almost everything can be linked back to sleep. You can imagine how bummed out we are to hear that according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, otherwise known as the CDC, thirty percent of us are sleeping a sad average of no more than six hours a night. That’s 40.6 million Americans not getting enough sleep! The National Sleep Foundation tells us that the recommended amount of sleep is seven to nine hours a night. Apparently, anything less than that opens the door to an increased risk of health problems such as diabetes, heart disease, depression, substance abuse, and even an increase in appetite and the risk for future weight gain or obesity. At a recent meeting of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a new and unpublished study shared that a lack of sleep could impact diet by boosting our cravings for less healthy foods and by hindering our decision-making ability when it counts—like when we’re up against fatty and calorie-filled snacks.

As alarming as all of this may be, we’re actually here to give you some good news that will most likely help! There are several things that you can do to help you get the sleep you need. And to avoid all of those nasty complications that come with sleep deprivation. All of these tips tie back to eating well and staying active.

Exercise keeps your muscles, bones, and heart strong and in shape to conquer the day. It may also help you sleep! Previous studies have shown that participating in an exercise training program has moderately positive effects on sleep quality in middle-aged and older adults. So for all you parents and grandparents out there, stay active for a good night’s sleep! We recommend that you exercise earlier in the day. After your workout, your body needs a few hours to cool down. A cool body sleeps better, so be sure to give your body enough time to cool down so that you can get the sleep you need.

If you’re dieting, you might be staying away from carbs. But carbohydrate-rich foods, in moderation, give you the energy you need during the day and hit your sleep sweet spot at night. Tryptophan, an amino acid found in lots of carbohydrate-rich foods, creates serotonin in your body. This is the neurotransmitter that helps you wind down after a long day. Try a steady dose of carbs like oatmeal and other whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy foods. These options will not only help you get to sleep, but they’re healthy for you too! Remember to keep you dinners and bedtime snacks small. Large, late meals can adversely affect sleep!

Be cautious with caffeine! This stimulant of the central nervous system is notorious for delaying sleepiness and is known to cause sleep disturbances for those of you who do manage to doze off after a cup of coffee. This is because caffeine inhibits some sleep-promoting hormones in your body. Caffeine also stays in the body for several hours, so you should steer clear of the coffee at least several hours before bedtime.

Another beverage to keep an eye on is alcohol. Alcoholic beverages not only encourage binging on food, but it promotes a restless sleep and boosts daytime fatigue. And we don’t even have to discuss the likelihood of hangovers.

The bottom line is that eating healthy and staying active could help you with any sleep problems you may be experiencing at night. We think it’s worth a try. At the very least, you’ll be living a healthy lifestyle!

Sleep Apnea & 50% of Women

If you’ve been keeping up with our blog, you know that we discussed that sleep apnea, previously thought to be just the men’s problem, actually affects women too. (For those of you lost and curious, here’s the link to our post: https://sleepbusiness.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/sleep-apnea-does-not-discriminate/) Well, it turns out that not only does sleep apnea occur in women, but it occurs in a whopping fifty percent of women too!

A new Swedish study of 400 women between the ages of twenty and seventy recently came out with its startling results. Funded by the Swedish Heart Lung Foundation, this study determined that half of the women had mild-to-severe sleep apnea. Four hundred women were chosen from a larger random population sample of 10,000 and were given overnight sleep tests. They answered a questionnaire and were monitored while they slept with sensors attached to their bodies. These sensors measured their heart rate, their eye and leg movements, their blood oxygen levels, their airflow, and even their brain waves. Needless to say, they were monitored very closely for more accurate results.

Researchers found that half of the women had mild-to-severe sleep apnea. In addition, half of the subjects experienced at least five episodes an hour of not breathing for longer than ten seconds, which is the minimum definition of sleep apnea. This disruption of breathing was then followed by a significant drop in blood oxygen levels. In the women who had hypertension or who were obese, researchers found that the numbers for sleep apnea were even higher—eighty to eighty-four percent! This is because hypertension and obesity are two known risk factors for sleep apnea.

It turns out that age also plays a role. The team found that sleep apnea is more common in older age groups. Of the women who were ages twenty to forty-four, one-fourth of them had sleep apnea. Fifty-six percent of women ages forty-five to fifty-four had sleep apnea. And of the women ages fifty-five to seventy, an alarming seventy-five percent of them had sleep apnea.

So what’s the point of all of these statistics? Why do we care? Well, we care because it’s been said that mild sleep apnea, although not as severe, does not go away—it just gets worse over time. So even though it may be mild and manageable now, it’s only bound to get worse. In addition, sleep apnea has been tied to greater consequences such as a higher risk of stroke, heart attack, and even early death. Not only that, but women who have sleep apnea are more likely to develop memory problems and even dementia than women who sleep soundly every night. So you see, it doesn’t just stop at a lack of sleep. No, so many more things, worse things, can come out of this.

 

Sleep Apnea in a Nutshell

Have you been feeling drained or tired lately? Have you been sleeping the whole night but find yourself waking up tired the next morning? There is a chance you could have sleep apnea. Even if you have the proper nutrition and exercise regularly you are still susceptible to sleep apnea. The National Sleep Foundation has as many as 18 million Americans with OSA. Over 90% of them probably don’t know that they have it.

Sleep apnea comes as a result of a person airways being blocked while they sleep depriving them of oxygen. Usually symptoms vary from daytime fatigue to loud snoring. Having sleep apnea also puts a person at greater risk of car accident and industrial accidents. Sleep apnea can also branch off into many other severe illnesses like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. Life expectancy can be severely shortened by as much as 20 years.

There are many factors that can result in sleep apnea. Obesity, enlarged tonsils and chronic allergies can all result in the disorder. The only way to find out whether you have the disorder is to get yourself tested in a sleep lab or in your home. Your sleep will be measured to account for all the apneic episodes that happen over the course of the night. Apneic episodes happen when a person stops breathing for more than 10 seconds.

If you have sleep apnea, the most common treatment is to use continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP.  A mask is used so air can be blown into a person’s throat keeping the airways open. This by far is the most effective treatment around because it allows someone to get the proper sleep while at the same time has relatively no side effects.

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Raising Public Awareness of Sleep Apnea

According to research obtained from the  National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes, including the National Institute of Health, it is essential to gain knowledge of the effects of Sleep Apnea  to anyone’s health.

To begin with, knowledge of the disorder can give increased awareness of its’ relationship to other illnesses such as hypertension, cardiac disease, etc. Sleep Apnea has also been linked to other types of conditions such as irregular heartbeats, depression, and myocardial infarctions (heart attacks).

To add further to the list, obesity, and diabetes Mellitus(Type 2), sleepiness during daytime, and more have been associated with Sleep Apnea. Sleepiness during daytime, in particular,  is dangerous because when people do their ADLs (Activities of Daily Living), such as driving, they can fall asleep on the wheel which could lead to disaster.

Over 60% of Asian men, researchers say, are known to be suffering from some type of Sleep Apnea, be it mild, moderate, or severe. This phenomenon  continues to baffle many sleep experts and physicians. The main question then, is why there is this prevalence of Sleep Apnea in this particular demographic.

With greater awareness, easy to do Home testing,  CPAP machines and other various treatment options, Sleep Apnea can be controlled.

As the old adage goes, “the best things in life are free”. We can say the same thing about Sleep – it is free. We just need to know whether we’re getting free GOOD sleep or not.

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