A Good Night’s Sleep May Be Key To Preventing Miscarriages

Dr. Pari was featured as a guest contributor in the article below, originally posted for Yahoo by Korin Miller, April 2, 2015.

Scientists have discovered that the womb has an internal clock that makes sleep much more important to conception than previously thought.

Pregnant women don’t usually have to be told twice to get some sleep, but new research has found that it’s important for a woman to get her ZZZs when she’s trying to conceive.

Scientists from the U.K.’s University of Warwick recently discovered that a woman’s womb has an internal molecular clock that needs to sync up with a her own body clock to lower her risk of miscarriage.

For the study, researchers took womb biopsies from 70 women who had suffered several miscarriages and treated the cells from those biopsies in a way that simulated pregnancy. Scientists discovered that there was an increased risk of miscarriage or infertility when the genes in the embryo and mother’s body clock didn’t synchronize. They also found that there was an increased risk of complications that would surface later in the pregnancy, such as preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction, and early birth.

But while it’s important for a woman’s body clock to sync up with her womb’s molecular clock once she’s pregnant, the process actually needs to happen before a woman actually becomes pregnant.

Study researcher Jan Brosens, PhD, who runs a specialist clinic for miscarriage patients, explains the process to Yahoo Health: In order for a woman to become pregnant, that molecular clock in her womb needs to be switched off just at the time that her egg is fertilized. The molecular clock is also temporarily silenced when the embryo implants in her womb. Consequently, the interactions between the embryo and womb should be synchronized when the molecular clock is switched back on later in her pregnancy. If they’re not, there is an increased risk a woman will experience a miscarriage.

According to the National Institutes of Health, 15 to 20 percent of known pregnancies result in a miscarriage, and the majority of miscarriages occur during the first seven weeks of pregnancy.

“The No.1 cause of miscarriage is an embryo that doesn’t have the right number of chromosomes,” says Pari Ghodsi, MD, a board-certified fellow of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology who did not work on the study. Ghodsi tells Yahoo Health that smoking, being under- or overweight, and drinking more than 200 mg of caffeine a day in the first trimester can also increase a woman’s chance of a miscarriage.

And, as new research suggests, a lack of sleep. Brosens notes that women who are trying to become pregnant but have had erratic sleep patterns shouldn’t worry about a permanent effect on their ability to sync up their womb and body clocks. “Our data suggest that the regulation of the molecular clock can change from cycle to cycle,” he says. “The ability of the lining of the womb to constantly renew explains why many women will achieve a successful pregnancy after several miscarriages.”

While Brosens says it’s a good idea for all women trying to conceive to get a good night’s sleep, he recommends that women who have suffered multiple miscarriages or IVF failures attempt to avoid activities that can impact their body clock, if at all possible.