14 DAY TRIAL // For centuries, popular wisdom had it that infants tend to wake up taller than they were when they went to bed. Now, scientific studies finally confirm the old saying, providing the first verifiable clues to certify this connection.
Apparently, the two are tied together in all aspects, researchers say, after conducting a first-of-its-kind study on this issue. They noted that daily growth and sleep were entirely dependent on each other, and that the link was apparent with ease as soon as experts began to look for it.
In other words, infants experienced a lot more growth during the days in which they slept for long hours, or when they slept more often than usual. Conversely, when they were kept awake for longer, they tended to exhibit lower growth levels.
With this study, experts say, it became apparent that science still knows very little about what goes on in the human body during the first couple of years of life. Investigations such as this one may help shed some more light on the way we grow, Science Blog reports.
“Little is known about the biology of growth spurts. Our data open the window to further scientific study of the mechanisms and pathways that underlie saltatory growth,” research scientist Michelle Lampl, MD, PhD, explains.
She holds an appointment as the Samuel C. Dobbs professor of anthropology at the Emory University, and is also the associate director of the Emory/Georgia Tech Predictive Health Institute.
Lampl was the lead author of a new study detailing the findings, which appears in the May 1 issue of the esteemed medical journal Sleep. University of Virginia Health System professor of pharmacology Michael Johnson, PhD, was the coauthor of the work.
“Sleep irregularities can be distressing to parents. However, these findings give babies a voice that helps parents understand them and show that seemingly erratic sleep behavior is a normal part of development,” the team leader adds.
“Babies really aren’t trying to be difficult,” Lampl adds. She says that more sleeping also triggers growth as an anabolic process, and that this is evidenced by the increase in weight and amount of abdominal fat that the children display.
“Growth spurts were associated with increased sleep bout duration in boys compared with girls and increased number of sleep bouts in girls compared with boys,” the expert concludes, saying that the two genders respond differently to sleep.