The Development of Sleeping Patterns in Preterm Infants

描述(申请人提供)：拟议的纵向研究调查早产/低出生体重(PT LBW)婴儿的早期睡眠发育及其与婴儿-母亲互动和新生儿医疗风险的关系。这项研究是Poehlmann博士资助的R01的延伸，对婴儿进行了两年的跟踪调查，包括出院时、4个月、9个月和24个月时收集的数据(根据胎龄进行了校正)。这一扩展有三个具体目标，在最初的拨款中没有涉及：(1)记录低出生体重儿在出生后头两年的睡眠模式的发展，(2)调查婴儿与母亲的互动质量，作为新生儿健康风险与早期睡眠问题之间关系的中介，以及(3)调查早期低出生体重儿的睡眠问题是否会随着时间的推移导致较少的最佳婴儿与母亲互动，从而放大两岁时的婴儿睡眠问题。这项拟议的研究将通过研究早期睡眠调节发展所涉及的纵向过程来推进儿童发展领域，并将扩大我们对(1)低出生体重婴儿睡眠，(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地与睡眠问题的发展相关的知识。

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.