Dados do Trabalho

Título

Late Effects of Therapeutic Caffeine Use on Premature Children’s Sleep

Introdução

Prematurity, characterized by the birth of the newborn before completed 37 weeks of gestation, might lead to adverse consequences, not only in the immediate neonatal period, but also in infancy, adolescence and adult life. The apnea of prematurity is a condition that affects premature neonates and its main therapeutic resource is caffeine. While this substance acts by competitively inhibiting adenosine receptors, caffeine decreases total time and quality of sleep and increases its latency.

Objetivo

To evaluate whether the administration of caffeine to treat apnea of prematurity in preterm newborns lately alters sleep habits in children aged between 5 and 10 years old.

Métodos

Cross-sectional study in which parents of 87 children between 5 and 10 years of age answered the Children’s Sleep Habits questionnaire (CSHQ). The study was conducted in person at the UNIFESP Preterm Clinic and remotely via Google Forms. The sample were categorized into 3 groups: term newborn (TN) (N=45), preterm who were not treated with caffeine (PTNC) (N=20) and preterm who were treated with caffeine (PTC) (N=22).

Resultados

Children of the PTC group had total daily sleep time significantly longer than children of TN group (10h24±1h08 and 09h29±1h08, respectively) and awakening significantly later on weekdays than children of TN group (09h±00h58 and 07h43±1h15, respectively). No significant differences were observed between the 3 groups for bedtime on weekdays, bedtime on weekends and time to wake up on weekends.

Conclusões

The results of the study indicated that caffeine administered in the neonatal period did not negatively affect the sleep habits of premature children who received this treatment during their infancy. It was also associated with a longer total daily sleep time and a late awakening during weekdays.

Palavras -chave

sleep, caffeine, preterm, children