The Development of Sleeping Patterns in Preterm Infants

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究旨在调查早产儿/低出生体重儿的早期睡眠发展及其与母婴互动和新生儿医疗风险的关系。这项研究是波尔曼博士美国国立卫生研究院资助的R01研究的延伸，对婴儿进行了为期2年的随访，并收集了出院时、4个月、9个月和24个月（经胎龄校正）的数据。这个扩展有3个具体目标，这是没有在原来的拨款解决：(1)记录出生后两年内婴儿睡眠模式的发展；(2)研究母婴互动质量在新生儿健康风险与早期睡眠问题之间的中介作用；(3)研究早期婴儿睡眠问题是否会导致婴儿与母亲的互动减少，从而在两岁时放大婴儿睡眠问题。该研究将通过研究早期睡眠调节发展的纵向过程来推进儿童发展领域，并将扩展我们对以下方面的知识：(1)PT - LBW婴儿睡眠，(2)母婴关系与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或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.