Publication

Evaluating causal associations of chronotype with pregnancy and perinatal outcomes and its interactions with insomnia and sleep duration: a mendelian randomization study

Open Access
BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
2024

Background

Observational studies suggested chronotype was associated with pregnancy and perinatal outcomes. Whether these associations are causal is unclear. Our aims are to use Mendelian randomization (MR) to explore (1) associations of evening preference with stillbirth, miscarriage, gestational diabetes, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, perinatal depression, preterm birth and offspring birthweight; and (2) differences in associations of insomnia and sleep duration with those outcomes between chronotype preferences.

Methods

We conducted two-sample MR using 105 genetic variants reported in a genome-wide association study (N = 248,100) to instrument for lifelong predisposition to evening- versus morning-preference. We generated variant-outcome associations in European ancestry women from UK Biobank (UKB, N = 176,897), Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, N = 6826), Born in Bradford (BiB, N = 2940) and the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa, N = 57,430), and extracted equivalent associations from FinnGen (N = 190,879). We used inverse variance weighted (IVW) as main analysis, with weighted median and MR-Egger as sensitivity analyses. Relying on the individual participant data from UKB, ALSPAC, BiB and MoBa, we also conducted IVW analyses of insomnia and sleep duration on the pregnancy and perinatal outcomes, stratified by genetically predicted chronotypes.

Results

In IVW and sensitivity analyses, we did not find robust evidence of associations of chronotype with the outcomes. Insomnia was associated with a higher risk of preterm birth among evening preference women (odds ratio 1.61, 95% confidence interval: 1.17, 2.21), but not among morning preference women (odds ratio 0.87, 95% confidence interval: 0.64, 1.18), with an interaction P-value = 0.01. There was no evidence of interactions between insomnia and chronotype on other outcomes, or between sleep duration and chronotype on any outcomes.

Conclusions

This study raises the possibility of a higher risk of preterm birth among women with insomnia who also have an evening preference. Our findings warrant replications due to imprecise estimates.

Access type

Open

Journal name

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Volume

Volume 24, Issue 816

Publication date

2024

DOI identification

10.1186/s12884-024-07023-8

Sign Up to Our Newsletter

Stay informed and inspired — sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest updates, research insights, and ways to get involved directly in your inbox!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Born in Bradford letterpressed print
Born in Bradford logo
Privacy

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

For more information, please visit our Privacy Policy.