Maternal Night-Shift Work Tied to Later Neurodevelopmental Issues in Offspring

FRIDAY, Nov. 6, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Continued night-shift work throughout pregnancy is associated with a higher risk for neurodevelopmental screening abnormalities among offspring at age 4 years, according to a study published online Oct. 27 in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Subaru Ikeda, Ph.D., from Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, and colleagues examined the association between night-shift work during pregnancy and offspring development. The analysis included 31,528 mothers who worked in the first trimester and completed the child development questionnaire at age 4 years, as part of the Japan Environment and Children’s Study.

The researchers found that compared with non-night-shift workers, women who discontinued night shifts showed an increased risk for offspring developmental screening abnormalities only in the fine motor domain (risk ratio [RR], 1.24), whereas women who continued night shifts showed higher risk in three domains (communication: RR, 1.29; fine motor skills: RR, 1.34; and personal-social functioning: RR, 1.31). Compared with women with moderate prenatal sleep duration (six to nine hours), women with long prenatal sleep duration (10 hours or more) showed greater risk for developmental screening abnormalities in any of the five domains (RR, 1.80).

“Greater awareness of the potential occupational and sleep-related implications of night-shift work during pregnancy may facilitate informed workplace discussions and appropriate accommodations for pregnant workers,” the authors write.

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