Michal Kahn, Maristella Lucchini, Shambhavi Thakur, Emily Oster, Natalie Barnett
Presented at ESRS 2024
Introduction
Parents often attribute a variety of symptoms and behaviors to infant teething. One of these symptoms, which is considered problematic by parents, is sleep disturbances. However, research on this topic is scarce and inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between tooth eruption and changes in objective sleep metrics in infants.
Method
The Institutional Review Board of Tel Aviv University approved the study. A total of 756 infants 0–24 months of age (M = 8.4 ± 1.8months, 46% females) who had a tooth eruption in the previous month were recruited among Nanit users in the United States. Auto-videosomonography (Nanit) was utilized to assess the following metrics: total sleep time at night (TST); number of night wakings (NW); and number of parental visits to the crib (Visits). Data were collected anonymously, and informed consent was obtained electronically. Teething period was defined as three days centered around the day parents reported the tooth eruption. To investigate differences in sleep between teething and non-teething days, paired t-test and Wilcoxon test were conducted comparing averaged sleep metrics of the week before and after teething (baseline) with the teething period.
Results
There was no significant difference between the baseline and teething periods in TST (Baseline: 10.10 ± 1.032 h; Teething: 10.11 ± 1.21 h) and NW (Baseline: 3.32 ± 1.69; Teething: 3.32 ± 1.82). There was a small significant difference in Visits, yet this difference was in the opposite direction that expected, with slightly more parental crib visits in the baseline compared to teething period (Baseline: 1.52 ± 1.90; Teething: 1.50 ± 2.06; p = 0.02).
Conclusion
These results suggest that sleep is not meaningfully affected by teething, although these disruptions are often indicated by parental reports. This is the first study to examine objective sleep metrics in relation to tooth eruption and whilst these initial results do not show a strong relationship between tooth eruption and sleep, further studies combining quantitative data and parental reports are needed to elucidate further the relationship between teething and sleep in infancy. One limitation of autovideosomnography is that it does not capture what happens outside of the crib and it cannot quantify the potential effect of medication given to infants to reduce the effect of possible teething symptoms.
About the Researchers
The researchers included Michal Kahn, Maristella Lucchini, Emily Oster, Shambhavi Thakur, Mali Waugh, and Natalie Barnett.
- Dr. Michal Kahn is a sleep researcher and licensed clinical psychologist, specializing in pediatric insomnia and sleep development. She is a senior lecturer (assistant professor) at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University, Israel.
- Dr. Maristella Lucchini serves as Senior Clinical Researcher at Nanit. In her role, Maristella works to secure grant funding in collaboration with Nanit’s university research partners and supports the development of the company’s research collaborations around the world. Previously, Maristella served as an Assistant Research Scientist in the Division of Developmental Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center where she led projects across several cohorts focusing on sleep health for pregnant and postpartum women and their children. Maristella’s research focused on underserved communities and sleep health disparities in the perinatal period. During her years as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in the Department of Psychiatry, Maristella was selected to participate in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigator Research Forum. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.
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Professor Emily Oster is a Professor of Economics at Brown University and the author of Expecting Better, Cribsheet and The Family Firm. She holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard. Prior to being at Brown she was on the faculty at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Emily’s academic work focuses on health economics and statistical methods. She is interested in understanding why consumers do not always make “rational” health choices — why do people not eat a fully healthy diet, or pursue all recommended preventative health behaviors? Her work also concerns methods for learning causal effects from observational data. Emily’s books analyze the data behind choices in pregnancy and parenting. Expecting Better analyzes the data behind many common pregnancy rules, and aims to improve decision-making for pregnant women. Cribsheet does the same for early childhood — what does the evidence really say on breastfeeding, co-sleeping or potty training. Finally, The Family Firm takes this approach to parenting in the early school years, looking at data on school, extracurriculars, sleep and also providing a framework to make unexpected decisions and address the logistical challenges of this period of parenting. Emily writes a newsletter called ParentData on data, pregnancy, child rearing and whatever else is on the mind of parents. In recognition of this work, she was named to TIME's list of "The 100 Most Influential People of 2022."
- Shambhavi Thakur serves as Clinical Research Data Analyst at Nanit. She holds a Masters degree in Health Informatics and Life Sciences. She oversees the research collaborations with various universities and analyzes sleep data for internal as well as external studies.
- Dr. Natalie Barnett serves as VP of Clinical Research at Nanit. Natalie initiated sleep research collaborations at Nanit and in her current role, Natalie oversees collaborations with researchers at hospitals and universities around the world who use the Nanit camera to better understand pediatric sleep and leads the internal sleep and development research programs at Nanit. Natalie holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of New England in Australia and a Postgraduate Certificate in Pediatric Sleep Science from the University of Western Australia. Natalie was an Assistant Professor in the Neurogenetics Unit at NYU School of Medicine prior to joining Nanit. Natalie is also the voice of Nanit's science-backed, personalized sleep tips delivered to users throughout their baby's first few years.