Michele Okun, Ph.D., BioFrontiers Research Professor and Director of the Sleep and Biobehavioral Health Research Laboratory, recently landed the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program Lifestyle and Behavioral Health Interventions Research Award. The award comes with a significant grant to study how a “smart” bassinet can improve mental health for military-affiliated mothers of newborns, in which Okun will act as Principal Investigator (PI).
The study, “Improving Maternal Mental Health in Military-Affiliated Pregnant Women: Effectiveness of a Smart Bassinet,” is a multi-institutional collaborative effort with Cornell Medical School and University of Virginia, who will handle lab work and data collection, respectively. Okun and the research team plan to investigate the effectiveness of smart bassinets in improving sleep patterns in infants, and, subsequently, the sleep and mental health of the birthing parent.
Smart bassinets function to help a fussing infant self-soothe by using various techniques such as white noise or swaying motions to mimic rocking. The bassinet’s response is based on the intensity of the child’s crying and aims to help calm them back to sleep, potentially keeping parents from having to respond to every time their child wakes and instead allowing them to sleep through minor fussing.
“I study sleep and perinatal health, particularly mental health, and I am really excited for a tool that could potentially decrease the need for parents to get up in the middle of the night as often to attend to an upset baby, if the baby could learn how to self-soothe in a faster manner,” Okun said. “Parents, especially new moms, tend to get up immediately, even if the baby doesn’t need anything, so this allows the baby to learn how to self-soothe to possibly get themselves back to sleep.”
With how closely related sleep and mental health are, an instrument to help parents have better sleep health could significantly decrease the disorders and negative effects that stem from, or are exacerbated by, interrupted rest.
“This is an interesting behavioral and non-pharmaceutical way to potentially enhance infants’ ability to fall back asleep or stay asleep longer, so that parents, in turn, can stay asleep longer and reduce the risks that come with disrupted sleep,” said Okun. “Both insomnia and poor sleep quality are risk factors for postpartum mood disorders, which in themselves are associated with long-term issues such as impaired maternal-infant bonding and negative consequences for child cognitive and behavioral development.”
Okun has several years experience working with sleep health and has authored over six dozen articles and chapters, and perinatal sleep health has been a focus of hers for some time. It’s been a longstanding goal to secure funding for in-depth research into her specializations, and she looks forward to seeing what positive impact the study can bring.
“I’m beyond thrilled to receive this grant and hopeful that we’ll see positive outcomes and possible integration of the bassinet into military services,” Okun shared. “The spouses of our active military are a substantial and less-studied population that experiences extra stressors that non-military spouses do not, such as constantly moving, not knowing people, not having social support, so their risk for depression and other mental health issues are increased, especially in the postpartum.”
The U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity, 808 Schreider Street, Fort Detrick MD 21702-5014 is the awarding and administering acquisition office. This work was supported by The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs endorsed by the Department of Defense, in the amount of ($3,800,334.00), through the Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program under Award Number (HT9425-24-1-0690). Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily endorsed by The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs endorsed by the Department of Defense.