Obstructive sleep apnea in pregnancy linked to higher risk of congenital malformations: News from the sleep conference.

 Newborns of mothers with sleep apnea have higher chances of requiring resuscitation at birth, longer hospital stay and 26% higher risk of being born with a congenital malformation reports a study result presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS), Boston.

This is first of its kind study linking Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) in pregnancy and its effect on newborn.

The researchers looked at data from more than 1.4 million linked maternal and newborn records from National Perinatal Information Center over a period of 4 years from 2010-2014.

More than 17% of babies born to mother with OSA had congenital malformations. These mothers were also more likely to be tobacco and drug user, older, obese, and with pre-gestational hypertension and diabetes.

Only 10% of babies born to mother with no OSA had congenital anomalies (P < 0.001).

Most common anomalies were those related to circulatory system, nervous system and musculoskeletal.

Moreover, these newborns also had 2.76 times the risk of requiring resuscitation at birth and 2.25 times more likelihood of being in hospital for extended period of time.

“Our results have shown that babies born to mothers with a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea are more likely to require resuscitative efforts at birth, be born preterm, and to require a stay in the neonatal intensive care unit compared to babies who were not exposed to maternal sleep apnea,” said principal investigator and lead author Dr. Ghada Bourjeily, associate professor of medicine at Brown University and the Women’s Medicine Collaborative at The Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.

“These findings add to our understanding of the extent of morbidities of maternal sleep apnea for the mother as well as the baby,” said Bourjeily. “The results further highlight the importance of identifying this condition in pregnancy and testing the impact of therapy on these complications.”

Dr. Bourjeily opined that results of this single study do not prove causation.

“We know that women who have sleep apnea also often have other morbidities, so we don’t know what might have contributed to the congenital outcomes,” said Dr. Bourjeily.

“We also don’t know if treating sleep apnea can reverse or prevent birth complications or even maternal complications, like preeclampsia or gestational diabetes.”

Studies are underway to look at maternal continuous positive airway pressure therapy use and neonatal outcomes.

Dr. Bourjeily received research equipment support from Respironics.