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Maternal fatigue in the postpartum period is common and has been linked to postpartum depression. Breast-feeding has well-known advantages for young infants, but does it adversely affect maternal sleep compared with formula-feeding? To find out, researchers analyzed objective and subjective sleep and fatigue data collected from 80 mothers (mostly white, married, and well educated) when their term infants were ages 2 to 13 weeks. Each week, mothers reported whether their infants were breast-fed, formula-fed, or both. At age 2 weeks, 70% of infants were exclusively breast-fed, decreasing to 34% at 12 weeks.
Mothers in the three groups had statistically similar total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and sleep fragmentation, as measured by actigrap…