Season 6 | Episode 21

DR. LOUISE O’BRIEN, GUEST

There was a recent consensus statement from the Society of Anesthesia and Sleep Medicine and the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology on the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in pregnancy. For too many, a sleep evaluation is deferred until the pregnancy is over, with the idea that pregnancy-related sleep disorders will resolve at the end of the pregnancy. This leaves so many with sleep disorders undiagnosed and untreated. Dr. Louise O’Brien has tried to bridge this gap. She works in the Division of Sleep Medicine in the Department of Neurology, as well as the Division of Maternal and Fetal Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan. She is here to share her experience locally, but also globally when it comes to sleep health during pregnancy.

Louise O’Brien, PhD, MS, is a professor in the division of sleep medicine at the University of Michigan. She obtained her BSc in physiology and her PhD in neonatal physiology and completed a postdoc in maternal-infant health in the United Kingdom. She then relocated to the United States and completed a fellowship in sleep research. Her research brought together the fields of obstetrics and sleep, where she focuses on the impact of suboptimal sleep – and its treatment – on adverse pregnancy outcomes. She also directs multiple other studies on the impact of sleep disruption in non-pregnant women, infertile women, pregnant and postpartum women, and in the health of the fetus/infant/child.

Resources

  1. Dominguez JE, Cantrell S, Habib AS, Izci-Balserak B, Lockhart E, Louis JM, Miskovic A, Nadler JW, Nagappa M, O’Brien LM, Won C, Bourjeily G. Society of Anesthesia and Sleep Medicine and the Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology Consensus Guideline on the Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea in Pregnancy. Obstet Gynecol. 2023 Aug 1;142(2):403-423. https://doi.org/10.1097/aog.0000000000005261
  2. Yang CL, Jansen EC, Dunietz GL, Hirko K, O’Brien LM, Kerver JM. Sleep Disparities Across Pregnancy: A Michigan Cohort Study. Womens Health Rep (New Rochelle). 2023 May 15;4(1):219-231. https://doi.org/10.1089/whr.2023.0009
  3. Lucchini M, Rayport Y, Valeri L, Jelic S, St-Onge MP, O’Brien LM, Alcantara C. Racial/ethnic disparities in sleep-disordered breathing during pregnancy in the nuMoM2b study. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2023 Apr;31(4):923-933. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.23697