Children (Feb 2022)

Maturation of Arousals during Day and Night in Preterm Infants

  • Aurore Guyon,
  • Francoise Ravet,
  • Alex Champavert,
  • Marine Thieux,
  • Hugues Patural,
  • Sabine Plancoulaine,
  • Patricia Franco

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/children9020223
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 2
p. 223

Abstract

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The objective of this study was to compare the maturation of spontaneous arousals during day and night sleep in preterm and term infants. From the Autonomic Baby Evaluation study, the sleep and arousal characteristics of 12 preterm (35.1 ± 2.1 weeks’ gestational age, GA) and 21 term (39.8 ± 0.8 weeks GA) newborns were compared between diurnal and nocturnal sleep periods at birth (M0) and 6 months (M6) of age. Models were adjusted for time (night/day), maturation (M0/M6), prematurity (yes/no). We found that preterm infants had less active sleep (AS)% than term infants with maturation during both day and night sleep, which may reflect accelerated brain maturation secondary to stress or environmental exposure after birth. Moreover, there was a difference in arousal maturation during day and night sleep in the preterm infants, as shown previously for term infants, which suggests the emergence of a circadian rhythm during the earliest postnatal period. We also showed that compared to term infants, these moderate preterm infants had fewer total arousals and, more specifically, fewer arousals in AS during day and night sleep, exposing them to a higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome.

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