Insufficient sleep causes migraine during pregnancy

Lack of sound and sufficient sleep during pregnancy increases the likelihood of migraine.

An estimated 20 percent to 80 percent of women suffer migraines during pregnancy. Many migraine sufferers  may experience an exacerbation of their symptoms at the beginning of the first trimester. Consequently, these women may need to take anti-migraine medications early in pregnancy, which also corresponds to the most vulnerable period of fetal development.

To narrow down which women were likely to need migraine medications during pregnancy, the researchers analysed data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study - an observational study of 60,435 pregnant women recruited between 1999 and 2006 and conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

After adjusting for a variety of factors, pregnant women who reported getting less than 5 hours of shuteye each night were 50 percent more likely to use anti-migraine drugs than women who slept for longer each night. Overall, 3840 (roughly 6 percent) women reported having a migraine during the first 5 months of pregnancy. Of these, 2525 (about 73 percent) reported using migraine medications during pregnancy. Other factors which increased the likelihood of medication included high body mass index before pregnancy, being on sick leave and occurrence of back, shoulder or neck pain.

The most common migraine agents used included non-narcotic analgesics (54 percent) and so-called triptans (25 percent) and the choice of drug during this period may be influenced by maternal socio-demographic factors and presence of other illness.