OBJECTIVE:

Women sleep less in the postnatal period and it has been suggested that mothers diagnosed with depression alternatively could be suffering from the effects of chronic sleep deprivation.

METHOD:

From a population-based study, we recruited 42 women, of whom 21 scored >or=10 on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Sleep was registered by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), sleep diaries and actigraphy 2 months after delivery.

RESULTS:

There were significant differences in subjective sleep measured retrospectively by the PSQI between depressed and non-depressed women. In contrast, there were no significant differences in sleep measured prospectively by sleep diaries and actigraphy. Both depressed and non-depressed women had impaired sleep efficiency (82%) and were awake for about 1.5 h during the night. Primipara had worse sleep, measured by actigraphy, compared with multipara.

CONCLUSION:

Measured objectively and prospectively, women with depression did not have worse sleep than non-depressed women.