Poster Presentation
Water's Edge Ballroom (Hilton Waikoloa Village)
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Water's Edge Ballroom (Hilton Waikoloa Village)
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Big Dreams, Little Sleep: Dreams during Pregnancy after Prior Pregnancy Loss
Paulina Van, PhD, Department of Community Mental Health Nursing, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA, Tene Cage, BA, School of Medicine, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, USA, and Maureen Shannon, CNM, FNP, School of Nursing, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, USA.
| Learning Objective #1: Understand how dreams may be a source of sleep disturbance during pregnancy and use this new knowledge to develop related future studies |
| Learning Objective #2: Use new understanding of pregnancy-related dream content to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate individualized psychosocial care for women pregnant subsequent to pregnancy loss |
Sleep patterns and dream content may be affected by stressful life events such as pregnancy loss. Women who are pregnant subsequent to a prior pregnancy loss tend to have anxious and emotionally charged experiences during their pregnancies. Dreams can affect pregnancy outcomes, specifically premature birth. This qualitative study is the first investigation to explore sleep disturbances caused by dreams as experienced by a diverse group of women pregnant subsequent to a pregnancy loss. Our analysis resulted in the identification of 4 categories of dreams. We offer clinical assessment and intervention strategies to support these women prenatally and present suggestions for research to facilitate our understanding of their experiences.
Note: this study is published in the Nov/Dec 2004 issue of Holistic Nursing Practice