{"id":817695,"date":"2026-10-29T15:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T15:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817695\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T15:34:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T15:34:24","slug":"working-night-shifts-during-pregnancy-linked-to-development-delays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/817695\/","title":{"rendered":"Working night shifts during pregnancy linked to development delays"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women who work night shifts throughout pregnancy are more likely to have children with development delays at age four, a new study has found.<\/p>\n

The study, published today, found that children of women who worked nights during pregnancy were more likely to have neurodevelopmental abnormalities at age four than other children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe present findings may inform occupational health support for pregnant workers who engaged in night shift work\u201d<\/p>\n

Study authors<\/p>\n

The study\u2019s authors, from Kyushu University, suggest that workplaces should offer greater flexibility to nurses and other women who frequently have to work night shifts when they are pregnant.<\/p>\n

Night shift work during pregnancy has previously been linked to higher rates of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia and preterm birth.<\/p>\n

And a past review of the impact of night shift work on pregnant healthcare workers found an association with a higher risk of miscarriage.<\/p>\n

The new study, in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine<\/a>, includes nationwide survey data from Japan on 31,528 women who were pregnant and gave birth between January 2011 and March 2014.<\/p>\n

They completed a questionnaire about their monthly work schedules during their first trimester, and again in their second or third trimester of pregnancy.<\/p>\n

According to the surveys, 1,779 of the women reported that they worked night shifts during the first trimester of pregnancy only, while 2,084 women reported working night shifts throughout their pregnancy.<\/p>\n

The risk of neurodevelopmental delays in the children of the women in the study was measured at age four years using a screening tool based on a caregiver questionnaire.<\/p>\n

Overall, 13% of the children included in the study were found to be at high risk of developmental delay in at least one of the five domains measured by the screening tool.<\/p>\n

And children of women who worked night shifts throughout pregnancy were significantly more likely than those whose mothers did not work nights to be at high risk across three of these domains, the study found.<\/p>\n

They were more likely to be at risk of neurodevelopmental delays affecting communication skills (29%), fine motor skills (34%) and personal-social functioning (31%).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, children of women who worked night shifts in the first trimester of pregnancy, and then stopped, had a 24% increased risk of neurodevelopmental delays affecting fine motor skills.<\/p>\n

However, they had no signs of any increased risk in the domains of communication, gross motor skills, problem solving or personal-social functioning.<\/p>\n

The researchers concluded that continued prenatal night shifts throughout pregnancy were associated with an increased risk of developmental screening abnormalities at age four.<\/p>\n

They recommended workplace policies should be introduced that provide flexibility in night shift scheduling during pregnancy, and a greater awareness of the wellbeing implications of prenatal night work.<\/p>\n

The study authors stated: \u201cThe present findings may inform occupational health support for pregnant workers who engaged in night shift work.<\/p>\n

They added: \u201cFurther research should clarify the underlying mechanisms and evaluate the roles of exposure timing, specific night work conditions and maternal sleep characteristics after accounting for potential selection effects and unmeasured confounding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Night shift research timeline<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women who work night shifts throughout pregnancy are more likely to have children with development delays at age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-817695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}