Mindfulness and insomnia at pregnancy

Introduction The impact of mindfulness in improving insomnia symptoms is documented in different samples (e.g. anxiety disorders; insomnia samples) and mindfulness based programs for pregnancy refer the association between mindfulness development and the reduction of insomnia symptoms/improvement of sleep. Objective To explore differences in the Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire-10 (FMQ-10; Azevedo et at. 2015), between sleep groups, in Portuguese pregnant women. Methods Four hundred and nineteen pregnant women (mean age: 32.51 ± 4.759; weeks of gestation: 17.32 ± 4.803) answered the Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire-10 and the Insomnia Assessment Scale (IAS, Marques et al., 2015). Three sleep groups were created considering all the IAS items: good sleepers (no insomnia symptoms; no associated daily impairment); insomnia symptoms groups (one/more insomnia symptoms; no associated daily impairment; exclusion of other conditions/disorders explaining the symptoms); insomniacs (one/more insomnia symptoms; one/more daily associated impairment; exclusion of other conditions/disorders explaining the symptoms). Results There were significant differences in the total FMQ-10 score, the F1/Nonjudging of inner experience and the F2/acting with awareness, between sleep groups [respectively, F (2.402) = 6,933; P  = 0.001; F (2.406) = 10.243; P  = 0.001; F (2.406) = 37.431; P  = 0.002]. Tukey tests indicated that the mean total FMQ-10 and F1/Nonjudging of inner experience scores of good sleepers and insomnia symptoms group were significantly higher than of the insomniacs. The mean value of F2/acting with awareness in the good sleepers was significantly higher than of the insomniacs. Conclusions It seems important to develop mindfulness to improve sleep in pregnancy or reduce the impact of insomnia symptoms (common at pregnancy).