A study published recently in JAMA Dermatology assesses sleep disturbances and exhaustion, common in mothers of children with atopic dermatitis.

In the study, data from 11,649 mother-child pairs followed through age 11 suggests that having a child with eczema was associated with reported difficulty falling asleep, subjectively insufficient sleep, and increased daytime exhaustion for mothers.

The severity of a child’s eczema was associated with worse sleep outcomes for mothers. However, sleep disturbances for children didn’t completely explain sleep disturbances for mothers, so more research is needed to investigate other possible causes.

Self-reported sleep information is a limitation of the study, explains a media release from JAMA Dermatology.

[Source(s): JAMA Dermatology, EurekAlert]