A Longitudinal Association between Sleep and Body Weight Changes from Birth to 3 Years

Sleep is vital important for early childhood development. A growing body of work has found that sleep problems in Taiwan are common for children aged 0-6 years. Short sleep duration in infancy has been identified to be associated with childhood obesity in Western literatures. However, limited longitudinal evidence exists regarding the association between sleep status and body weight changes in early childhood for Taiwanese children. The aim of this study is to investigate the longitudinal association between sleep status and body weight changes in healthy children from birth to 3 years of age. A convenient sampling technique will be used to recruit interested primparous (singleton delivery) mother-newborn pair at a medical center located in North Taiwan. The newborns will be eligible for a 3-year follow-up if the following criteria are met: 1) ≥ 37 weeks gestation, 2) birth weight ≥ 2500 gm, 3) discharge from newborn nursery (baby-room) or neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) without significant neonatal mobility, and 4) nursery or NICU stay less the 7 days. Five hundred eligible newborns will be recruited. Eligible newborns will be scheduled for collecting sleep, environmental light exposure, food intake, and anthropometric data every half-year from the 1st week after birth to 36-month of age. Sleep assessment will be performed in the home environment by mother-reported infant sleep diary, the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire, and an actiwatch to monitor movement of the child. Data will be analyzed based on the study aims. Study results are anticipated to understand the contemporaneous changes in sleep with changes in body weight, and to provide an informative reference regarding to the effect of different sleep patterns on dietary intake and body weight changes for children aged 0-3 years.

Project ID:PC10001-1215
External Project ID:NSC99-2314-B182-032-MY3