Study: Mother's Risk of Stillbirth May Be Influenced by Sleeping Position

Women who slept on their left side in late pregnancy reduced their risk of experiencing a late-term stillbirth by roughly one-half (from 3.93 cases per 1000 to 1.96). That's the finding of a study conducted at the University of Aukland in Australia and published in the British Medical Journal. The study is being heralded as the first case controlled study in the world to examine the link between maternal sleeping position and stillbirth.

The researchers studied the sleeping habits of 155 mothers who gave birth to stillborn babies during or after 28 weeks of pregnancy with another 310 mothers who experienced pregnancies that resulted in the birth of a living child. 

The researchers also discovered that staying in bed all night on the night before the baby was stillborn (as opposed to getting out of bed once or twice to use the bathroom) and sleeping a greater number of hours were other factors associated with an increased risk of stillbirth.

So does this mean that we can expect sleep education campaign for mothers, similar to the SIDS-prevention sleep campaigns of recent years?

Not quite yet.

In an accompanying editorial entitled Should Pregnant Women Sleep on Their Left?, Lucy C. Chappell of King's College, London, and Gordon C.S. Smith of Cambridge University stress that more research is needed before any definitive conclusion can be drawn: "This study should be seen as one that only generates a hypothesis that needs validation."