Night work and sick leave during pregnancy: a national register-based within-worker cohort study

Abstract

ObjectiveThe aim of our study was to investigate the acute effect of night work during pregnancy on the risk of calling in sick the following day using register-based information and the workers as their own controls.MethodsUsing the payroll-based national Danish Working Hour Database, including all public hospital employees in Denmark, we identified 9799 pregnant women with ≥1 day shift and ≥1 night shift and ≥1 day of sick leave during the first 32 pregnancy weeks from January 2007 to December 2013. We performed fixed effects logistic regression, that is, within-worker comparisons, of the risk of sick leave of any duration starting within 24 hours after night shifts of different length versus day shifts.ResultsMost of the participants were nurses (64%) or physicians (16%). We found an increased relative risk of sick leave following night shifts compared with day shifts during all pregnancy trimesters. The risk was highest for night shifts lasting >12 hours (OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.63 for nurses; OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.69 to 2.08 for physicians) and among women aged >35 years (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.24 to 1.63).ConclusionAmong Danish public hospital employees night shifts during pregnancy, especially shifts longer than 12 hours, increased the risk of calling in sick the following day independent of personal factors and time-invariant confounders in all pregnancy trimesters.

Risk factors for resignation from work after starting infertility treatment among Japanese women: Japan-Female Employment and Mental health in Assisted reproductive technology (J-FEMA) study

“…However, our findings are in accordance with prior study showing the risk for sick leave in shift workers compared with scheduled workers. 12 Suga et al 30 previously reported that non-regular employees more frequently changed their occupations five times more than regular employees do; part-time and short-term contract employees were 12 times more likely to have occupation changes. Non-permanent workers have substantially more barriers to taking the frequent or sudden leaves of absence that are frequently required during infertility treatment while still being engaged in their jobs.…”

How to schedule night shift work in order to reduce health and safety risks

“…In the same cohort, the risk of calling in sick within two days following night shifts was higher throughout pregnancy independent of individual factors and timeinvariant confounders (73), and -among night shift workers -the risk of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, grew with increasing number of consecutive night shifts, particularly among obese women (body mass index ≥30 kg/m 2 ) (74). The results support that, in order to reduce risk of miscarriage, pregnant women should have no more than one night shift in a week (table 4).…”

Revisión sistemática sobre los riesgos del trabajo nocturno en embarazadas

“…Tras la lectura de título y resumen se evaluaron a texto completo 6 estudios, entre los cuales una revisión narrativa que, tras analizarla, quedó excluida debido a que incluía artículos no relacionados con el tema a estudio o estaban fuera del periodo de tiempo analizado (Figura 1). De los 5 artículos incluidos, 4 fueron observacionales de cohortes [18][19][20][21] y 1 fue una serie de casos 22 .…”