Frequency, Not Amount Of Sleep Makes New Moms Exhausted

June 10, 2009 6:07 a.m. EST

Seattle, WA (AHN) - Most new moms are getting the same amount of sleep they did before they gave birth, but it's the frequency they are sleeping that's making them so tired, researchers said at a conference on sleep in Seattle this week.

Megan Clegg-Kraynok and Hawley Montgomery-Downs with West Virginia University, said post partum mothers definitely have sleep disruptions during the night that cause exhaustion issues during the day, but the amount of sleep women participating in a study reported coincided with the amount of preferred sleep, only much more fragmented.

"We found that although our participants are quite fatigued, and their sleep at night is highly interrupted, first-time mothers of newborns go to sleep at night and awaken in the morning at the times they report are their preferred sleep and awake times," Clegg-Kraynok said in a statement.

The exception to their theory is women with multiple children, the researcher told audience members Tuesday at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Health experts recommend that adults need between seven and eight hours of sleep every night to be fully rested.