The Development of Sleeping Patterns in Preterm Infants

描述（由申请方提供）：拟定的纵向研究调查了早产/低出生体重（PT LBW）婴儿的早期睡眠发育及其与母婴互动和新生儿医疗风险的关系。这项研究是Poehlmann博士的NIH资助的R 01的延伸，对婴儿进行了为期2年的随访，包括出院时、4个月、9个月和24个月（校正胎龄）时收集的数据。这一扩展有3个具体目标，这是没有在原来的赠款解决：（1）记录出生后2年内PT LBW婴儿睡眠模式的发展，（2）调查婴儿-母亲互动质量作为新生儿健康风险和早期睡眠问题之间关系的中介，（3）调查早期PT LBW婴儿睡眠问题是否导致更少，随着时间的推移，最佳的婴儿-母亲互动，从而放大婴儿的睡眠问题在2岁。这项研究将通过检查早期睡眠调节发展中涉及的纵向过程来推进儿童发育领域，并将扩展我们对以下方面的知识：（1）PT LBW婴儿睡眠，（2）婴儿-母亲关系和婴儿睡眠随时间的相互作用，以及（3）新生儿医疗风险如何直接和间接与睡眠问题的发展相关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed longitudinal study investigates early sleep development and its relation to infant-mother interaction and neonatal medical risks in preterm/low birth weight (PT LBW) infants. This study, which is an extension of Dr. Poehlmann's NIH-funded R01, follows infants for 2 years and involves data collected at hospital discharge, 4, 9, and 24 months (corrected for gestational age). This extension has 3 specific aims, which are not addressed in the original grant: (1) to document the development of sleep patterns in PT LBW infants over the first two years of life, (2) to investigate infant-mother interaction quality as a mediator of the relationship between neonatal health risks and early sleep problems, and (3) to investigate whether early PT LBW infant sleep problems lead to less, optimal infant-mother interactions over time, thus amplifying infant sleep problems at 2 years. The proposed investigation will advance the field of child development by examining the longitudinal processes involved in the development of early sleep regulation and will extend our knowledge of (1) PT LBW infant sleep, (2) the interaction of infant-mother relations and infant sleep over time, and (3) how neonatal medical risks directly and indirectly relate to the development of sleep problems.