Sleep quality is associated with the weight of newborns after in vitro fertilization (IVF)/intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

Background: Sleep disorders are thought to be common in women with in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) conception. Although a few studies have investigated the association between maternal sleep quality and infant birth weight, it is unclear to what extent birth weight is associated with sleep quality during pregnancy among these women. Therefore, we conducted a cohort study to assess sleep quality among women receiving IVF-ET during the subsequent pregnancy and investigated the association of self-report sleep quality on infant birth weight.

Methods: This study was a prospective cohort study recruiting women who were to receive assisted reproductive technology (ART). Sleep quality was measured by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) before oocyte retrieval and in the first trimester, second trimester, and third trimester during pregnancy. A generalized estimating equation (GEE) model was applied to evaluate the associations between sleep quality at specific times and infant birth weight. A general linear model was conducted to explore which component of the PSQI questionnaire was most associated with infant birth weight.

Results: Between August 2016 and August 2020, a total of 1344 women who had singleton births with IVF conception were included in the analysis. PSQI scores in the first trimester were highest (4.59 ± 2.47) but had no significant relationship with birth weight. After accounting for potential influencing factors, we found that poor maternal sleep quality in the second trimester was significantly associated with small for gestational age (SGA) among female infants (OR = 3.03, 95% CI = 1.04 to 9.71, P = 0.044), while no association was observed between sleep quality and birth weight in male infants (OR = 1.64, 95% CI = 0.68 to 3.99, P = 0.271).

Conclusions: These findings suggest that the sleep quality of women with IVF pregnancies may influence fetal weight in a trimester- and sex-specific manner.