Cohort Profile: The Shanghai Sleep Birth Cohort Study

Abstract

Background Sleep disturbances in women occur frequently throughout pregnancy. Previous studies have demonstrated that the increasing incidence of physiological and psychological illness is concurrent with increasing sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality in adults and children. Objectives The Shanghai Sleep Birth Cohort Study (SSBCS) was established to examine the effect of sleep disturbances during the third trimester on emotional regulation of mothers; to assess the effect of maternal sleep during pregnancy on the growth and development of children; and to explore the influence of children's sleep characteristics on physical and social‐emotional development. Population The study was conducted in the Renji Hospital in Pudong New District, Shanghai from May 2012 to July 2013. Women and their newborns who met the inclusion criteria and agreed to participate in this study were recruited to the SSBCS. Methods The follow‐up visits for children were conducted at the age of 42 days, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months, and 3, 4, and 6 years. Data on demographic factors, physical examination, sleep assessment, developmental and psychiatric assessment, diet records, and biological samples were collected throughout the study. Preliminary results A total of 277 pregnant women were recruited to the study; the response rate was 64.3%. 37.9% of the pregnant women had poor sleep quality and 12.0% suffered from depression. Infant sleep patterns changed during the first year of life, but most sleep characteristics showed little variation from 6 to 12 months. Conclusions The SSBCS is an on‐going prospective cohort study with follow‐up to 6 years. The detailed data on demographic factors, sleep assessment, physical examinations, neurodevelopmental and psychiatric assessment, diet records, and biological samples make this research platform an important resource for examining the potential effects of sleep characteristics on both maternal and child health.

Combined effects of weight change trajectories and eating behaviors on childhood adiposity status: A birth cohort study

“…The Shanghai Sleep Birth Cohort Study (SSBCS), an ongoing mother-child birth cohort recruited from the general population, aims to investigate the effects of perinatal and early life environmental and behavioral factors on child growth and development. Detailed information has been described previously [24] . Briefly, the recruitment was conducted at the Obstetric Clinic of Renji Hospital (Shanghai, China), which is adjacent to our unit, from May 2012 to July 2013.…”

“…We also assessed maternal sleep quality, depressive symptom and anxiety status at the first visit using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [33] , the Center for Epidemiological Survey-Depression Scale [34] and the State-Trait Anxiety Index [35] , respectively, all of which are standardized questionnaires and are widely used in China. Details can be found in our previous articles [24,36] . On each postnatal follow-up (until 24 months' postpartum), the mothers were asked to report the feeding method (exclusive breastfeeding, mixed feeding, or bottle feeding).…”

“…Therefore, we used a birth cohort with nine follow-up time points (at birth, 3,6,9,12,18,24,36, and 48 months) to characterize WAZ-change trajectories, to determine the periods with the greatest WAZ-change, and to investigate independent and combined effects of WAZ-change trajectories with early lifestyle factors on children's adiposity indicators at age of 4 years old.…”

The mediating effect of DNA methylation in the association between maternal sleep during pregnancy and offspring adiposity status: a prospective cohort study

“…The Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health conducted two ongoing birth cohorts: Shanghai Birth Cohort (SBC) and Shanghai Sleep Birth Cohort (SSBC) [ 25 , 26 ]. The SBC aimed to investigate the effect of early-life exposure to environmental and behavioral factors on the child’s health, whereas the SSBC was more focused on the effect of sleep disturbances on the children’s growth and development.…”

“…Only singleton gestation women without any pregnancy complications were included in the present study. All measurements of the two cohorts used in the current study were designed according to the same protocol [ 25 , 26 ]. To further explore the potential epigenetic mechanism, the cord blood DNA methylation analysis was performed from the SSBC, whose recruitment was conducted in the Renji Hospital from May 2012 to July 2013 (Additional file 2 : Figure S1).…”