Trying to conceive? Then go to sleep
Women who went to bed around the same time every day took the shortest time to conceive. PHOTO | FOTOSEARCH
What you need to know:
- The scientists reckon that modernisation, and increased demand for things round the clock has led to the disruption of the natural day-night schedule.
- Now we have people working during the day and continuing with their side hustles late into the night.
Findings of a new study suggest that getting pregnant could be as easy as fixing that erratic sleeping schedule. Apparently, a big cause of female infertility is delayed bed time.
This study was conducted by researchers from Washington University in St Louis in the US. For the study, they designed smart watches that could effectively monitor sleeping and rest patterns of a group of women while giving the scientists access to the raw data.
A look into the results from 176 study subjects showed that the timing of sleep matters. 75 of the 176 women in the study were pregnant by the end of the study year.
Most of them were found to have a higher income and a lower BMI. After adjusting all the other factors, sleep was found to be a major factor in getting these results.
The researchers found a definite correlation between the sleep and rest patterns with how long it took a woman to conceive.
The researchers report getting surprised at how strong this correlation is. They note that while couples struggling to conceive will do anything including paying thousands in hospital treatments, hardly do couples think that their sleeping patterns could be the culprit.
“They eliminate alcohol and caffeine and fix their diet but we found that the only thing that anyone is unwilling to scrimp on – both men and women – is sleep,” explains Dr Emily Jungheim, the lead study author.
The scientists reckon that modernisation, and increased demand for things round the clock has led to the disruption of the natural day-night schedule. Now we have people working during the day and continuing with their side hustles late into the night.
From the study, women trying to conceive who went to bed around the same time every day took the shortest time to conceive.
Those whose bed time swung from early evening to late night on the other hand took the longest time to fall asleep once in bed. The latter group was able to conceive more easily.
While the scientists are sceptical that these results will be a global bed reset time, they reckon that this will be a useful piece of advice to women starting a family.
