694 - Associations of Infant Sleep Patterns with Later Child Cognition

Sunday, April 30, 2023

3:30 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Poster Number: 694
Publication Number: 694.308

Morgan A.. Finkel, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, United States; Ngoc Duong, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, United States; Jeff Goldsmith, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States; Amanda F. Hernandez, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, Old Tappan, NJ, United States; Sheryl Rifas-Shiman, Harvard Medical School and HPHCI, Boston, MA, United States; Ari Shechter, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, United States; Emily Oken, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Boston, MA, United States; Jennifer Woo Baidal, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, United States

Presenting Author(s)

Morgan A. Finkel, MD, MS (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Brooklyn, New York, United States

Background: Short sleep duration and poor nighttime sleep consolidation in infancy are common. Relationships between infant sleep and later childhood cognition are not well understood.

Objective: To examine the extent to which longer infant 24-hour sleep duration and higher nighttime sleep consolidation are associated with measures of child cognition in early and mid-childhood.

Design/Methods:

Participants are from Project Viva, a prospective, pre-birth cohort in Massachusetts of singleton infants born to English-speaking women. For this analysis, we included children born >34 weeks gestation with data on 1) sleep measures in infancy (median age 6.4 months) and 2) child cognition in early childhood (median age 3.2 years) or mid-childhood (median age 7.7 years). Main exposures were parental report of infant usual 24-hour sleep duration and nighttime sleep consolidation (nighttime sleep % [night sleep hours/24-hour sleep]). Early childhood cognitive outcomes were receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) and visual-motor abilities (Wide Range Assessment of Visual Motor Abilities [WRAVMA]). Mid-childhood cognition outcomes were verbal and nonverbal IQ (Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test), memory (Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning Visual Memory Index), and drawing (WRAVMA Drawing Subscale). We examined associations of infant sleep with childhood cognition using linear regression models adjusted for child sex and race/ethnicity; maternal age, education, and parity; and household income.

Results: Early and mid-childhood analyses included 1102 and 969 children, respectively. Most children had maternally-reported white, non-Hispanic race/ethnicity (72%) and 74% of mothers were college graduates. Mean cognitive scores were generally above U.S. population averages (e.g., mid-childhood Verbal IQ mean 112.9±14.7 points). Infant 24-hour sleep duration was mean 12.3±2.0 hours and nighttime sleep consolidation was mean 77.0±8.5%. In early childhood, we found no associations between infant sleep and child cognition. In mid-childhood, higher infant nighttime sleep consolidation was associated with higher mid-childhood verbal intelligence (β: 0.12 points per % nighttime sleep; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.22) but not with other outcomes. Infant 24-hour sleep duration was not associated with any mid-childhood cognition outcomes.

Conclusion(s): In this cohort, greater infant nighttime sleep consolidation was associated with higher verbal IQ in mid-childhood. Future studies should investigate causal relationships of infant sleep consolidation with child cognition among diverse populations.