Babies who persistently struggle with sleep in their first year are more likely to have anxiety

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Babies who persistently struggle with sleep in their first year are THREE TIMES more likely to have anxiety by age four

  • Babies who have difficulty sleeping are also twice as likely to have depression
  • Scientists in Australia tracked 1,500 babies through childhood
  • Higher rates of mental illness were found in those who slept badly as babies 

By Ben Spencer Medical Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: | Updated:

Babies who persistently struggle to sleep in their first year are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression in childhood, research suggests.

One in five babies have sleep difficulties in their first 12 months – such as frequent waking or trouble falling asleep.

These babies are three times as likely to suffer with emotional problems by the age of four, researchers found.

They are also more than twice as likely to have a clinically defined emotional disorder – such as depression, separation anxiety or obsessive compulsive disorder – by the age of 10.

The scientists – from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia – said babies who struggle to sleep should be carefully monitored for mental health problems in childhood.

Babies who persistently struggle with sleep in first year more likely to have child anxiety

ARE SLEEP AND MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS LINKED? 

Sleep problems are more likely to affect patients with psychiatric disorders than people in the general population, Harvard Health reports.

Sleep problems may increase risk for developing particular mental illnesses, as well as result from such disorders.

Treating the sleep disorder may help alleviate symptoms of the mental health problem.

Although scientists are still trying to tease apart all the mechanisms, they’ve discovered that sleep disruption — which affects levels of neurotransmitters and stress hormones, among other things — wreaks havoc in the brain, impairing thinking and emotional regulation. In this way, insomnia may amplify the effects of psychiatric disorders, and vice versa.

Studies using different methods and populations estimate that 65 per cent to 90 per cent of adult patients with major depression, and about 90 per cent of children with this disorder, experience some kind of sleep problem.

Sleep problems affect more than 50 per cent of adult patients with generalised anxiety disorder, are common in those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and may occur in panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and phobias. 

They are also common in children and adolescents. One sleep laboratory study found that youngsters with an anxiety disorder took longer to fall asleep, and slept less deeply, when compared with a control group of healthy children.

The team tracked 1,500 babies for the first year of their life – with mothers answering a detailed questionaire about their babies’ sleeping patterns at three, six nine and 12 months.

Each baby was given a score depending on their sleep patterns, and at the end of their first year put in one of three categories.

Some 19 per cent were found to have had ‘persistent and severe sleep difficulties’, including frequent waking at night and trouble falling asleep without help from a parent.

Another 56 per cent had ‘moderate, fluctuating sleep problems’ and 25 per cent had ‘settled sleep’.

The babies were tracked throughout childhood and their mental health was assessed at the ages of four and ten.

The researchers, whose findings are published in the BMJ Archives of Disease in Childhood journal, found those with persistent and severe sleep problems were 2.7 times more likely as other babies to suffer symptoms of emotional problems when they were four years old.

And they were 2.4 times as likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for an emotional disorder by the time they were ten.

These disorders include separation anxiety, social phobia, agoraphobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, bipolar, hyperactivity and defiance disorder.

The scientists wrote: ‘Persistent disturbed sleep during infancy may be an early indicator of a child’s heightened susceptibility to later mental health difficulties – in particular, anxiety problems.

‘Families reporting persistent infant sleep problems require enhanced support.

‘Infants with persistent severe sleep problems should be monitored for emerging mental health difficulties during childhood.’