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Sleep, Reproduction, And Pregnancy, Joshua R. Freeman

Doctoral Dissertations

Sleep, and particularly sleep timing, prior to conception may be important for reproductive and pregnancy health. Evidence of a biological mechanism relating sleep to reproductive health from laboratory studies suggests that sleep may influence the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis. The role of sleep in the HPO axis may also impact many reproductive outcomes including reproductive hormones, ovulation, pregnancy, live birth, pregnancy loss, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, epidemiological evidence for associations between sleep, especially sleep timing, and these reproductive health endpoints is limited with most studies typically assessing shift work, and not sleep patterns directly. To address these gaps, we evaluated …