Randomized clinical trials indicate digital cognitive behavioral therapy alleviates insomnia symptoms among pregnant women in a safer, scalable, agreeable, and effective manner. The results of the study were published in the JAMA.

Jennifer N. Felder, Ph.D., of the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, told Healio Psychiatry that sleep disturbances are common among pregnant women. However, certain pregnant women experience acute deprivation of sleep called insomnia, which can cause depression and also poses a risk of preterm birth for expectant mothers. She also admits that there is no proven method to date to improve this condition during the prenatal period. So, the finding of their study to treat pregnant women using digital CBT might prove to be a breakthrough in this regard. Being a drug-free method, it is safer and is preferred by most mothers-to-be.

Felder’s team subjected 105 participants to digital CBT and 103 participants to standard treatment to compare the efficiency of CBT-I. It was implemented over six-week sessions of 20 minutes each through a Big Health program – Sleepio. An online questionnaire was answered by the participating pregnant women who were up to 28 weeks of gestation to determine their insomnia symptoms. The outcome was measured at 10 weeks and 18 weeks, which was called as post-intervention and follow-up, respectively. Remote study visits were conducted, and intervention was done digitally.

Among 208 participants taking part in Felder's study, women who received CBT-I have shown notable improvement in statistics of the severity of symptoms related to insomnia when compared with others who received standard treatment from baseline to 10 weeks. Except for the sleep duration, the improvement was significant in all secondary outcomes like sleep efficiency, sleep quality, and depressive symptoms. The researchers noted another interesting pattern that the result was similar for the change from baseline to 18 weeks also.

Felder said, “We were pleased to see that digital CBT-I had additional benefits for depression and anxiety symptoms, including 16% of women who received Sleepio having experienced elevated depression symptoms after finishing the intervention compared with 31% of women who received treatment as usual, as well as 2% of women who received Sleepio having experienced moderate-to-severe anxiety symptoms compared with 8% of women who received treatment as usual.”

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The clinical trial was named “Research on Expecting Moms and Sleep Therapy (REST)” and is registered under identifier: NCT02805998. They choose online mediums to reach out to the women who are already seeking the internet for pregnancy-related information and assessed them based on their answers. Participants were recruited nationally to complete study questionnaires at five timepoints through pregnancy and six months postpartum. Participants randomized to CBT-I received access to 6 weekly CBT-I web-sessions and treatment as usual. Participants randomized to treatment will receive routine care and will be given access to Sleepio upon study completion.