Season 7 | Episode 7
Dr. Safia Khan | GUEST
In this episode, Dr. Seema Khosla talks with women’s sleep expert Dr. Safia Khan about women’s unique sleep challenges. Dr. Khan is an editor for A Clinical Casebook of Sleep Disorders in Women and specializes in women’s sleep health at UT Southwestern. She explains how sleep disorders affect women differently across their lives, particularly during pregnancy and menopause, and how these transitions disrupt normal sleep patterns.
Discover Dr. Khan’s assessment strategies for insomnia in women, including decision-making frameworks for implementing CBT-I versus medication interventions. Learn about the underdiagnosis of sleep disorders in women, particularly during menopause, and strategies for changing this normalized narrative. The conversation explores the physiological differences in sleep-disordered breathing between men and women, explaining why sleep apnea incidence equalizes during menopause.
The discussion addresses managing hypersomnia during pregnancy, approaches to fatigue without diagnosed sleep disorders, connections between PCOS and sleep disruption, and guidance on Restless Legs Syndrome management, including the critical role of iron deficiency screening in adolescent girls.
This episode provides essential knowledge for practitioners seeking to better understand and treat the unique sleep health challenges women face across their lifespans.
Dr. Safia Sameem Khan is a board-certified Sleep Specialist and Family Physician. She is an Associate Professor for the Department of Family & Community Medicine with a secondary appointment in the Department of Neurology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is the Program Director of Sleep Medicine Fellowship training at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX.
She completed her residency training in Family and Community Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, El Paso, TX after completing medical school at Quaid-e-Azam Medical College in Pakistan. She trained for Sleep Medicine fellowship at University of Texas Southwestern Medical, Dallas, TX where she is currently training the sleep medicine fellows and family medicine residents. Her special interests are sleep disorders among women, predominantly primary prevention, and early detection of sleep disorders in this population. Her publications and scholarly works have highlighted these interests. She is the author of many research and review articles, and the editor of the book ‘A Clinical Casebook of Sleep Disorders in Women’.
Resources
- Maurovich-Horvat E, Kemlink D, Högl B, Frauscher B, Ehrmann L, Geisler P, Ettenhuber K, Mayer G, Peraita-Adrados R, Calvo E, Lammers GJ, Van der Heide A, Ferini-Strambi L, Plazzi G, Poli F, Dauvilliers Y, Jennum P, Leonthin H, Mathis J, Wierzbicka A, Puertas FJ, Beitinger PA, Arnulf I, Riha RL, Tormášiová M, Slonková J, Nevšímalová S, Sonka K; European Narcolepsy Network. Narcolepsy and pregnancy: a retrospective European evaluation of 249 pregnancies. J Sleep Res. 2013 Oct;22(5):496-512. doi: 10.1111/jsr.12047. Epub 2013 Apr 8. Erratum in: J Sleep Res. 2014 Apr;23(2):239. PMID: 23560595.
- Sleep Pharmacotherapy for Common Sleep Disorders in Pregnancy and Lactation. MA Miller, N Mehta, C Clark-Bilodeau, G Bourjeily. Chest. 2019 Oct 14;157(1):184-197. doi: 10.1111/jsr.12047.
- A Clinical Casebook of Sleep Disorders in Women. SS Khan, IS Khawaja (Ed.). 2023. Switzerland: Springer. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-24200-7_10
