Korle Bu Teaching Hospital - Global Innovations for Reproductive Health & Life Healthy Birth Weight Study: A Cross-Section

Recently, three studies have suggested that maternal back sleep may be a risk factor for stillbirth (SB) and low birth weight (LBW). This is significant given that the majority of third-trimester pregnant women spend up to 25% of their sleep time on their back. The Ghana PrenaBelt Trial (GPT), completed by our team at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) from September 2015 - May 2016, was the first interventional trial investigating this possible relationship between maternal back sleep and LBW. However, a limitation of the GPT was that due to its sham-control design, all participants in the trial (treatment group and sham-control group) were educated during the consent process about back-sleep in late pregnancy as a possible risk factor for SB and LBW. At interim analysis of the GPT (February 2016), no difference in birth weight was found between the two groups. Also around this time, the study team had anecdotal reports from sham-group participants who indicated that they trained themselves to sleep exclusively on their left side. Further, there is evidence in the literature that when instructed to sleep on their left, third-trimester pregnant women can increase the percentage of left-sided sleep to approximately 60% of the night on average and maintain this across multiple nights.

Given this, it was questioned if the back-sleep education during the consent process could be having an effect on the sleep behaviour of the GPT participants independently of their treatment allocation; therefore, the KBTH-GIRHL Healthy Birth Weight Study was designed in March 2016 to investigate this question further. The aim of this study is to establish a reference birth weight of babies born to a cohort of women comparable to the cohort in the GPT but who have not received back-sleep education, did not participate in the GPT, and whose babies were born in a similar time period and weighed on the same newborn scales - in essence, a control group for the GPT.

This cross-sectional study will be accomplished via recruiting a control group from a pool of women having recently delivered at KBTH, reviewing their hospital records, and having them complete a short survey about their demographics, obstetric history, and sleep behaviors.

The results of this study, together with the results of the GPT, will enable us to determine whether or not education about back-sleep in pregnancy affects pregnancy outcomes, specifically birth weight.