New Mothers Face Significant Loss of Uninterrupted Sleep

Findings show uninterrupted sleep deficit persists longer than lower sleep duration

By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 12, 2025 (HealthDay News) — New mothers face a significant loss of uninterrupted sleep through week 13 postpartum, according to a study presented at SLEEP 2025, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, held from June 8 to 11 in Seattle.

Teresa Lillis, Ph.D., from the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and colleagues examined sleep duration and the longest stretch of sleep (LSS) to quantify maternal sleep during the first 13 postpartum weeks. The analysis included 41 first-time mothers with wearable data for one year before and after childbirth.

The researchers found that during postpartum week 1, daily sleep duration was 4.4 hours compared with 7.8 hours at preconception baseline. Similarly, daily LSS was lower (2.2 hours versus 5.6 hours preconception). Nearly one-third of participants (31.7 percent) went more than 24 hours without sleep. There were increases in daily sleep duration across postpartum weeks 2 to 7 (6.7 hours versus 7.7 hours preconception). For postpartum weeks 2 to 7, daily LSS stayed low (3.2 hours versus 5.5 hours preconception). Daily sleep duration reached 7.3 hours during postpartum weeks 8 to 13 (versus 7.9 hours preconception); however, daily LSS remained lower (4.1 hours versus 5.6 hours preconception). All differences were found to be significant.

“While mothers generally returned to their prepregnancy total nightly sleep duration after the first postpartum week, the structure of their sleep remained profoundly altered,” Lillis said in a statement. “These results fundamentally transform our understanding of postpartum sleep; it’s not the lack of sleep, but rather, the lack of uninterrupted sleep that is the largest challenge for new mothers.”