Maternal stress or sleep during pregnancy are not reflected on telomere length of newborns.

Telomeres play an important role in maintaining chromosomal integrity. With each cell division, telomeres are shortened and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) has therefore been considered a marker for biological age. LTL is associated with various lifetime stressors and health-related outcomes. Transgenerational effects have been implicated in newborns, with maternal stress, depression, and anxiety predicting shorter telomere length at birth, possibly reflecting the intrauterine growth environment. Previous studies, with relatively small sample sizes, have reported an effect of maternal stress, BMI, and depression during pregnancy on the LTL of newborns. Here, we attempted to replicate previous findings on prenatal stress and newborn LTL in a sample of 1405 infants using a qPCR-based method. In addition, previous research has been expanded by studying the relationship between maternal sleep quality and LTL. Maternal prenatal stress, anxiety, depression, BMI, and self-reported sleep quality were evaluated with self-reported questionnaires. Despite sufficient power to detect similar or even considerably smaller effects than those previously reported in the literature, we were unable to replicate the previous correlation between maternal stress, anxiety, depression, or sleep with LTL. We discuss several possible reasons for the discrepancies between our findings and those previously described.

Variants in calcium voltage-gated channel subunit Alpha1 C-gene (CACNA1C) are associated with sleep latency in infants.

Genetic variants in CACNA1C (calcium voltage-gated channel subunit alpha1 C) are associated with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia where sleep disturbances are common. In an experimental model, Cacna1c has been found to modulate the electrophysiological architecture of sleep. There are strong genetic influences for consolidation of sleep in infancy, but only a few studies have thus far researched the genetic factors underlying the process. We hypothesized that genetic variants in CACNA1C affect the regulation of sleep in early development. Seven variants that were earlier associated (genome-wide significantly) with psychiatric disorders at CACNA1C were selected for analyses. The study sample consists of 1086 infants (520 girls and 566 boys) from the Finnish CHILD-SLEEP birth cohort (genotyped by Illumina Infinium PsychArray BeadChip). Sleep length, latency, and nightly awakenings were reported by the parents of the infants with a home-delivered questionnaire at 8 months of age. The genetic influence of CACNA1C variants on sleep in infants was examined by using PLINK software. Three of the examined CACNA1C variants, rs4765913, rs4765914, and rs2239063, were associated with sleep latency (permuted P<0.05). There was no significant association between studied variants and night awakenings or sleep duration. CACNA1C variants for psychiatric disorders were found to be associated with long sleep latency among 8-month-old infants. It remains to be clarified whether the findings refer to defective regulation of sleep, or to distractibility of sleep under external influences.

Advanced sleep-wake rhythm in adults born prematurely: confirmation by actigraphy-based assessment in the Helsinki Study of Very Low Birth Weight Adults.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have suggested a propensity towards morningness in teenagers and adults born preterm. We set out to study sleep in a subsample from The Helsinki Study of Very Low Birth Weight Adults cohort, with emphasis on sleep timing, duration, and quality. We compared young adults who were born prematurely at very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500 g) with controls born at term. METHODS: We measured sleep by actigraphy in young adults aged 21-29 years. A total of 75 individuals (40 VLBW and 35 controls) provided adequate data. Group differences in sleep parameters were analyzed using t-test and linear regression models. RESULTS: VLBW adults woke up on average 40 min earlier [95% confidence interval (CI), 9-70] and reported 40 min earlier get up time (95% CI, 8-71) than did the controls. The difference remained after adjustment for confounders. We found no group difference in sleep duration or measures of sleep quality. CONCLUSION: Our findings of earlier rising in the VLBW group are suggestive of an advanced sleep phase in that group. These results reinforce previous suggestions that chronotype may be programmed early during life.

Effectiveness of preventive family intervention in improving cognitive attributions among children of depressed parents: a randomized study.

Our randomized trial examined the effectiveness of preventive interventions in increasing positive cognitive attributions and reducing negative cognitive attributions in children of depressed parents. In addition, it tested the role of attribution changes in mediating the intervention effects on children's depressive and emotional symptoms. The participants were 109 Finnish families with at least one parent in treatment for affective disorder, for a total of 145 children, 8-16 years of age. Families were randomized into two groups: the "family talk intervention" (FTI, a whole-family approach enhancing communication and child resilience, Beardslee et al., 1997) group, and an active control, the "let's talk about the children" (LTC, a parent-only psycho-educational approach, Solantaus, Paavonen, Toikka, & Punamäki, 2010) group. Children reported their cognitive attributions (CASQ-R, Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire-Revised (Thompson, Kaslow, Weiss, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998)), depressive (CDI/BDI, Child Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1981)/Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Steer, & Garbin, 1988)) and emotional (SDQ, Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997)) symptoms, and mothers reported their children's emotional symptoms (SDQ at baseline (T1) and 10-month (T2) and 18-month (T3)) follow-ups. Contrary to our hypothesis, no beneficial attribution changes were found in the FTI group across the follow-ups. Instead, positive cognitive appraisals increased in the LTC group, especially from T2 to T3. The increase of positive attribution further served as a mediator for changes in children's emotional and depressive symptoms. The findings suggest that a short preventive intervention can enhance beneficial cognitive processes in high-risk families in routine adult psychiatric care.

Sleep quantity, quality and optimism in children.

We tested the relationship of objectively measured sleep quantity and quality with positive characteristics of the child. Sleep duration, sleep latency and sleep efficiency were measured by an actigraph for an average of seven (range = 3-14) consecutive nights in 291 8-year-old children (standard deviation = 0.3 years). Children's optimism, self-esteem and social competence were rated by parents and/or teachers. Sleep duration showed a non-linear, reverse J-shaped relationship with optimism (P = 0.02), such that children with sleep duration in the middle of the distribution scored higher in optimism compared with children who slept relatively little. Shorter sleep latency was related to higher optimism (P = 0.01). The associations remained when adjusting for child's age, sex, body mass index, and parental level of education and optimism. In conclusion, sufficient sleep quantity and good sleep quality are related to children's positive characteristics. Our findings may inform why sleep quantity and quality and positive characteristics are associated with wellbeing in children.

Prenatal origins of poor sleep in children.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: We examined whether small body size at birth and prenatal tobacco or alcohol exposure predict poor sleep and more sleep disturbances in children. DESIGN: An epidemiologic cohort study of 289 eight-year-old children born at term. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Sleep duration and efficiency were measured by actigraphy for 7 consecutive nights (mean = 7.1, SD = 1.2). We used both continuous measures of poor sleep and binary variables of short sleep and low sleep efficiency ( < or = 10th percentiles). Parents completed the Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children. Lower birth weight and shorter length at birth were associated with lower sleep efficiency. For every 1-SD decrease in weight and length at birth, the odds for low sleep efficiency increased by 1.7 fold (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.1 to 2.7) and 2.2 fold (95% CI: 1.3 to 3.7), respectively. For every 1-SD decrease in ponderal index at birth, the risk of parent-reported sleep disorders increased by 1.4 fold (95% CI: 1.0 to 2.0). Moreover, children exposed prenatally to alcohol had a 2.9-fold (95% CI: 1.1 to 7.6) and 3.6-fold (95% CI: 1.3 to 10.0) increased risk for having short sleep and low sleep efficiency, respectively. The associations were not confounded by sex, gestational length, prenatal and perinatal complications, body mass index at 8 years, asthma, allergies, or parental socioeconomic status. CONCLUSIONS: Poor sleep in children may have prenatal origins. Possible mechanisms include alcohol consumption during pregnancy and other conditions associated with small body size at birth.

Subjective face recognition difficulties, aberrant sensibility, sleeping disturbances and aberrant eating habits in families with Asperger syndrome.

BACKGROUND: The present study was undertaken in order to determine whether a set of clinical features, which are not included in the DSM-IV or ICD-10 for Asperger Syndrome (AS), are associated with AS in particular or whether they are merely a familial trait that is not related to the diagnosis. METHODS: Ten large families, a total of 138 persons, of whom 58 individuals fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for AS and another 56 did not to fulfill these criteria, were studied using a structured interview focusing on the possible presence of face recognition difficulties, aberrant sensibility and eating habits and sleeping disturbances. RESULTS: The prevalence for face recognition difficulties was 46.6% in individuals with AS compared with 10.7% in the control group. The corresponding figures for subjectively reported presence of aberrant sensibilities were 91.4% and 46.6%, for sleeping disturbances 48.3% and 23.2% and for aberrant eating habits 60.3% and 14.3%, respectively. CONCLUSION: An aberrant processing of sensory information appears to be a common feature in AS. The impact of these and other clinical features that are not incorporated in the ICD-10 and DSM-IV on our understanding of AS may hitherto have been underestimated. These associated clinical traits may well be reflected by the behavioural characteristics of these individuals.