Professionals Awareness of Sleep Loss in New Parents

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This project aims to learn more about healthcare professionals understanding of the impact of poor sleep on new parents. Background and Rationale Sleep is a state of unconsciousness and rest in the brain (Colten & Altevogt, 2006). Sleep is a crucial process for brain functioning and physiological bodily processes, including cardiovascular functioning, metabolism and hormone functioning (Watson et al., 2015; Medic et al., 2017). Sleep loss, or sleep deprivation, can have adverse effects on cognitive functions, including memory, attention and learning (Bonnet et al., 2005). Sleep loss is prevalent in new parents following the birth of an infant, due to infants’ sleeping patterns and infants’ care needs throughout the night (Gay et al., 2004; Medina et al., 2009). The impact of sleep loss has also been shown on complex abilities, including social interaction and emotional processing, which are crucial influences of parent infant interaction and relationship formation as well as child development (Lanjekar et al., 2022). The role of healthcare professionals in the prenatal and perinatal periods is to support parents with antenatal and post-natal care, including but not limited to pregnancy care and birth support. Research has found that changes to sleep and sleep loss are associated with pregnancy (Chang et al., 2010) and after the birth of an infant (Malish et al., 2016). Previous studies have shown parents may view healthcare practitioners to have limited knowledge and training around child sleep (Cook et al., 2020). Previous research has also considered sleep loss in pregnancy as well as training programmes to support pregnant women with sleep in late pregnancy (Lee et al., 2016). However, limited research explores healthcare professionals’ knowledge regarding sleep in new parents after the birth of a baby, as well as professionals’ views on a training programme to support professionals working with new parents experiencing sleep loss. Aims, Hypotheses and Research Questions The aims of the proposed research study are to: understand what healthcare practitioners know about sleep in new parents; identify how confident healthcare practitioners feel working with new parents experiencing problems with sleep; identify what healthcare practitioners would want to see in a future training programme aimed at helping new parents experiencing problems with sleep. The proposed research study hypothesises there will be a significant difference between professional groups, specifically pre-natal and post-natal staff, as well as inpatient and community staff in their levels of confidence working with parents experiencing sleep loss. This study also hypothesises there will be differences between the highest level of education a professional has and their reported level of confidence working with parents experiencing sleep loss. This study also hypothesises there is a relationship between the number of years a healthcare professional has been qualified for and their levels of confidence in working with and supporting parents presenting with sleep loss. Therefore, the overall research question is to investigate healthcare professionals’ knowledge and understanding about new parent sleep and its social and emotional impacts.

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