Monica Ordway, Maristella Lucchini, Thomas Anders, Sarah Berger, Liza Natale, Shambhavi Thakur, and Natalie Barnett.
Presented at the 26th Congress of the European Sleep Research Society (ESRS) 2022
Introduction
Children born in 2020 will likely experience seven times more heat waves than those born in 1960. There is growing concern about the impact of these extreme, acute weather events. Despite multiple international organizations raising alarms about the impact of global warming on children’s health, few pediatric studies have investigated the impact of extreme weather events on sleep. The goal of this study was to examine the sleep of infants and toddlers in the United Kingdom (UK) using autovideosomnography data collected before, during, and after an acute heat wave in July 2022.
Methods
Infant sleep metrics (total sleep time (TST), sleep efficiency (SE) and number of night wakings (NW)) were collected via autovideosomnography for 120 infants in and around London, England (age 6-24 months, mean = 14.2±5.0 months) using the Nanit baby monitor from July 14-23. In the middle of this time period (July 18-19) there was an extreme heat wave, with maximum daytime temperatures above 38℃.
Results
Pearson’s correlations revealed strong negative correlations between maximum daytime temperature and TST (r(8)=-0.94, p<0.0001) and SE (r(8)=-0.87, p=0.001). Maximum daytime temperature and NW were positively correlated (r(8) =0.87, p= 0.001). Average TST for the two nights of the heatwave was more than 20 minutes less per night than the average of the four nights before and the four nights after the heatwave. Tukey tests revealed this difference to be significant (p's < 0.005).
Conclusion
The UK heat wave of July 2022 significantly impacted children’s sleep health. Findings from this study highlight the importance of including sleep health, a pillar of children’s overall health and wellbeing, in studies that aim to understand the impact of global warming on children’s health. This presentation will discuss implications of these findings as well as considerations for future research to test direct and indirect pathways by which extreme weather conditions affect sleep. Such research is urgently needed to inform ongoing global discussions to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement and identify sources of resiliency to combat global warming before 2035.
About the researchers
The authors include Monica Ordway, Maristella Lucchini, Thomas Anders, Sarah Berger, Liza Natale, Shambhavi Thakur, and Natalie Barnett.
- Dr. Monica Ordway's NIH-funded program of research is focused on the understanding of the biosocial relationships that determine health and development in early childhood. Her expertise in community-based participatory research, innovative and non-invasive biomarkers of stress, and objective sleep measurement has helped to generate new knowledge about the role of the multidimensional constructs of sleep health in mitigating the risk of toxic stress among infants and toddlers who experience adversity. Prior to completing her PhD and a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University, she worked as a primary care pediatric nurse practitioner for 10 years in a large urban practice. She continues to work as a nurse practitioner at the Yale Pediatric Sleep Clinic.
- Dr. Maristella Lucchini serves as Senior Clinical Researcher at Nanit. In her role, Maristella works to secure grant funding in collaboration with Nanit’s university research partners and supports the development of the company’s research collaborations around the world. Previously, Maristella served as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Division of Developmental Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center where she led projects across several cohorts focusing on sleep health for pregnant and postpartum women and their children. Maristella’s research focused on underserved communities and sleep health disparities in the perinatal period. During her years as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Department of Psychiatry, Maristella was selected to participate in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigator Research Forum. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.
- Dr. Thomas Anders graduated from Stanford University (1956) and Stanford University School of Medicine (1960). He completed psychiatry and psychoanalytic training at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, NY. A two-year post-doctoral research fellowship preceded his appointment as Director of the Division of Child Psychiatry at SUNY/Buffalo. He also has headed Divisions of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Stanford (1974-1984) and Brown University (1985-1992). At UC Davis, he served as Department of Psychiatry Chair (1992-1998) and then as Executive Associate Dean (1998-2002). His long standing clinical and research interests are in the areas of maturation of infant sleep-wake states and pediatric sleep disorders in children with ASD. He has been an NIH funded investigator and served as President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2005-2007).
- Dr. Sarah Berger is a Professor of Psychology at the College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She received her PhD from New York University. Dr. Berger was an American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Fulbright Research Scholar. Dr. Berger studies the interaction between cognitive and motor development in infancy, particularly response inhibition and its implications for the allocation of attention in very young children. A line of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded work, in collaboration with Dr. Anat Scher, has been the first to study the impact of sleep on motor problem solving in infancy.
- Dr. Liza Natale is an NYC based general pediatrician who has cared for infants, children and adolescents for over 17 years. In addition to her general pediatric practice, Dr Natale teaches classes at the 92nd Street Y (one of her favorites, Caring For Your Newborn Grandchild is a class for expectant grandparents) and serves as the medical consultant for The Acorn School, an independent nursery school in Manhattan. Dr Natale was one of the first pediatricians in New York to routinely screen parents for postpartum depression. This screening has since become recommended as routine by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
- Shambhavi Thakur serves as Clinical Research Data Analyst at Nanit. She holds a Masters degree in Health Informatics and Life Sciences. She oversees the research collaborations with various universities and analyzes sleep data for internal as well as external studies.
- Dr. Natalie Barnett serves as VP of Clinical Research at Nanit. Natalie initiated sleep research collaborations at Nanit and in her current role, Natalie oversees collaborations with researchers at hospitals and universities around the world who use the Nanit camera to better understand pediatric sleep and leads the internal sleep and development research programs at Nanit. Natalie holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of New England in Australia and a Postgraduate Certificate in Pediatric Sleep Science from the University of Western Australia. Natalie was an Assistant Professor in the Neurogenetics Unit at NYU School of Medicine prior to joining Nanit. Natalie is also the voice of Nanit's science-backed, personalized sleep tips delivered to users throughout their baby's first few years.