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A Common Marmoset Model of Mother-Infant Intervention for Breastfeeding Disorders in the Presence of Paternal Inhibition and Maternal Neglect
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Troubled sleep: Night waking, breastfeeding and parent-offspring conflict

David Haig1

  • 1Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health
|March 11, 2014
PubMed

Insights

Infant night waking, especially in breastfed babies, may be an evolutionary adaptation. This behavior could extend maternal breastfeeding, delay subsequent pregnancies, and improve infant survival rates.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental biology
  • Evolutionary medicine
  • Sleep science

Background:

  • Disrupted infant sleep is a common parental concern, particularly in the latter half of the first year.
  • Night waking is more frequent in breastfed infants.
  • Genetic studies in Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes link imprinted genes to sleep patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the evolutionary hypothesis for infant night waking.
  • To connect infant sleep behaviors with reproductive strategies and survival.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing literature on infant sleep patterns.
  • Analysis of sleep phenotypes in genetic syndromes (Prader-Willi and Angelman).
  • Hypothesis formulation based on observed correlations.

Main Results:

  • Infant night waking increases in the second half of the first year, especially in breastfed infants.
  • Paternally derived imprinted genes are associated with increased wakefulness, while maternally derived genes favor consolidated sleep.
  • These findings support an adaptive explanation for night waking.

Conclusions:

  • Infant night waking may be an evolved mechanism to prolong lactation.
  • This behavior could serve to delay subsequent births, enhancing the survival of the current infant.
  • Sleep patterns in infants are influenced by genomic imprinting and have evolutionary significance.

Keywords:
breastfeedingco-sleepingevolutionary pediatricsinterbirth intervalslactational amenorrheanight waking

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