You may have such confusion, why some people recover quickly after giving birth to a baby, while for some people, the baby is already several years old and the weight is still high. The secret is – sleep. A U.S. finding: For new mothers, getting enough sleep is just as important as a healthy diet and exercise if they want to regain their weight. Moreover, lack of sleep not only contributes to obesity, but also may lead to heart disease and diabetes. In a new study, researchers in Massachusetts followed 940 women over a four-year period to find out the relationship between their sleep habits and their weight. One year after giving birth, 124 of the new mothers gained 11 pounds from their pre-pregnancy weight. The researchers took into account other factors, such as household income, and found a phenomenon: New mothers who slept only five hours a day for six months after giving birth were three times more likely to gain weight than mothers who slept seven hours!
Those who sleep more than six hours are less likely to gain weight postpartum. In general, those who slept less were less likely to regain their prenatal weight after giving birth than those who slept enough. The study, discovered by researchers at Harvard Medical School, has been published in the journal American Epidemiology. The average person might think that sleeping less will help you lose more weight because you burn more calories when you wake up than you do during sleep. But the results of the study are the opposite, possibly because lack of sleep makes new mothers more prone to hunger (many studies have shown that lack of sleep reduces leptin production in the body and increases appetite). And the longer you are awake, the better your chances of eating.
Stress, sleep, and weight are actually closely related. The less sleep you have, the more likely you are to keep your energy and energy full by eating more food; when stress is too high, many women, not just new mothers, will also reward themselves with food to gain psychological balance and peace. Therefore, I call on all new fathers and their families to understand the difficulties of new mothers and give them necessary help and support. Try to give new mothers enough sleep.
