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Abstract Introduction Insufficient sleep in infancy is linked with deleterious health outcomes, encompassing compromised brain development, learning, mental functioning, and emotional states. Whether parents' emotional symptoms influence infant sleep has not been examined at the national level comprehensively. To explore this question observationally, we investigated associations between parental emotional symptoms and disturbances in infant sleep patterns. Methods This study utilized data from the National Health Interview Survey encompassing 447 mothers and 304 fathers and their infants (0-1 year; n=751) to examine associations among maternal and paternal anxiety, psychological distress, and infant sleep disturbances. Parents used the Baby Pediatric Symptom Checklist to report their infant sleep symptoms (troubles falling asleep: "Is it hard to put your child to sleep?” and staying asleep: "Does your child have trouble staying asleep?", with responses “not at all” (N), “somewhat” (S), “very much” (V). Predictors included maternal and paternal anxiety levels, gauged by frequency of feelings of worry, nervousness, or anxiety. Psychological distress was measured using the Kessler-6 scale. Multi-group generalized structural equation modeling was employed. Covariates were: age, sex, race/ethnicity (parent/infant), marital status, education, employment, nativity, poverty level, number of children and adults in household, and chronic health conditions (parent). Results Endorsement rates for trouble falling asleep were: N=79.6%, S=17.6%, and V=3.4%, and for trouble staying asleep: N=84.5%, S=13.4%, and V=2.1%. Compared with mothers who never experienced anxiety, mothers who reported anxiety a few times a year or weekly were 3.0 and 4.0 times as likely to report their infant having trouble falling asleep. Mothers experiencing anxiety a few times a year, monthly, or weekly, were 3.5, 5.0, and 5.2 times as likely to report their infant having trouble staying asleep. These associations were not evident among fathers. No associations were identified between maternal or paternal psychological distress and difficulties in infant sleep initiation or maintenance. Conclusion Results from this study align with previous clinical research showing differential associations between infant sleep and maternal and paternal mental health symptoms. Future work is needed to better understand why these differences exist in anxiety and to elucidate why psychological distress was not linked with infant sleep. Support (if any) COBRE Award P20GM139743
Narcisse et al. (Sat,) studied this question.