Liverpool Night-time Caregiving Study (Version 1)

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Liverpool Night-time Caregiving Study (Version 1)

• IRAS ID

  328029

• Contact name

  Sam Roberts

• Contact email

  s.g.roberts1@ljmu.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Liverpool John Moores University

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 2 months, 14 days

• Research summary

  Gentle touch is beneficial for most full-term healthy infants and their mothers; research has shown it improves infants’ stress resilience and mothers’ depression scores. However, few studies have considered mother-infant touch during the night and how it relates to their sleeping arrangements. Different infant sleeping arrangements involve more or less touch, depending on how physically separated mothers and infants are. In addition, there are a number of other caregiving factors related to infant sleeping location that we will be studying. For example, there is an association
  between bed-sharing (mother and infant sleeping together in the mother’s bed) and depression. However, it is unknown whether depression precedes bed-sharing or bed-sharing precedes depression; more longitudinal studies are needed which control for risk factors for postnatal depression. Because this research will explore the direction of the relationship between different infant sleeping arrangements and mother-infant outcomes, it is hoped that it will lead to a better understanding of the role of touch attitudes and behaviours in different sleeping arrangements and
  how these impact maternal mental health and infant outcomes. We co-designed this project with members of the local community to understand what outcomes were important to them.
  We will be recruiting UK-resident mothers-to-be who are 18 or older and in their third trimester. The research will be conducted in two phases, including online questionnaires once during pregnancy and twice postpartum (“Phase I”;
  approximately 25 minutes each) and one physiological study conducted in the participant's home for a subgroup of mothers ("Phase II"; approximately 40 minutes). For the latter, physiological recordings will allow us to measure infants' stress response and mothers' metabolic effort in soothing their infants, to see whether these outcomes are associated with other maternal factors measured in the questionnaires.

• REC name

  North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  24/NW/0169

• Date of REC Opinion

  15 Aug 2024

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion