While prolonged sleep can be a cause of worry and is a warning signal for dementia, not getting sufficient sleep can also lead to health complications as revealed by a research. 

According to a new research, women tend to be sleep deprived if they have children in the house.

That's right! The lack of sleep many women have to battle with on a regular basis reaffirms the notion that having kids equates to negligible or disturbed sleep.

A new research, which is in the preliminary stages and is slated to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) in April, shares that women are unable to get a good night's sleep — unlike their male counterparts — if there are kids at home.

Study author Kelly Sullivan noted that the research's findings could potentially "bolster women who say they feel exhausted."

Moreover, the study also disclosed that women were not only sleep deprived, but were also lethargic the entire day as a result of lack of sufficient sleep.

How The Study Was Conducted

To validate their hypothesis that having children at home can impact the sleep of a woman, the team observed data from a survey. This survey encompassed 5,805 people and was conducted over the phone countrywide.

The participants were quizzed on their sleep duration. Those who slept between seven to nine hours each day were in the optimum bracket. However, individuals who slept for six hours or less were in the insufficient sleep category.

The researchers also questioned the participants on their tiredness patterns, asking them how often they felt weary in the previous month.

The study also factored in the race, age, marital status, education, BMI, employment, income, exercise, and the number of kids in the home. They also took into consideration probable influences such as snoring that could potentially contribute to an individual's lack of sleep.

What Did The Researchers Find?

The researchers discovered that in the 2,908 women, who were below 45 years, the only influencing factor that could be linked to insufficient sleep was the presence of a child in the home. Alarmingly, the possibility of a woman being sleep deprived increased by 50 percent with each child.

The study also posited that nearly 48 percent women in this age bracket, who had kids, reported that they were getting a minimum of seven hours of sleep, which fell in the optimal bracket. By comparison, 62 percent of the women in this age group, who did not have children in the home, got seven hours of precious sleep.

The researchers did not find education, exercise or marital status impacting the duration of the women's sleep.

The team also discovered that younger women who had a kid in the home said they felt exhausted 14 days on an average each month. By comparison, women who did not have kids in the house said they felt weary 11 days on an average in a month.

While the sleep of a woman is impacted by the presence of a child in the house, the same does not affect the sleep duration of a man per the researchers.

Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões | Flickr