Research says that mothers suffer from more interrupted sleep than fathers after having children

Looking after newborns is the tiresome and exhausting business for parents. It is a common scenario for most parents as they suffer from lack of sleep looking after the newborns throughout the night. Now a study has brought to light that it is the mothers that suffer more than fathers from interrupted sleeping.

Further with every additional child, the ratio goes up as much as 50 percent. On the other hand, there was no effects of sleep patterns on fathers irrespective of the number of children. Apart from not sleeping enough researchers found that mothers felt tired throughout the day.

Research Methodology

-A team of Researchers from Georgia Southern University in the US interviewed  5,805 people aged 45 and below about their sleeping habits. 

-The researchers kept seven to nine hours sleep as optimal and less than 6 hours as insufficient
-Among 2,908 women, researchers found a direct correlation between amount of poor sleep and children
-62 percent of women without children reported getting at least 7 hours of sleep compared with 48  percent of women with children
-Further, there was an increase of more than 50 percent chances of not getting enough sleep with every increase of child.
-On the contrary, Researchers found no difference in the sleeping patterns among men with children and without children

Also Read: First-born children have higher IQ and than their siblings; Research settles the age-old debate

Researchers also attributed biological factors that occur in women throughout their life cycle for not getting enough sleep. They include hormonal imbalances on pregnancy and menopause and demands on breastfeeding.

The study further found that apart from the lack of sleep women also feel tired out the day. Young women with children felt tired for an average of 14 days in a month compared with 11 percent of young women without children.

Researchers stress the importance of sleep on overall health and suggest some measure for healthy sleep.They include reducing the intake of caffeine, maintaining dark environment in darkroom and also to avoid bright screen exposure of gadgets during bed time

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