Sleepy Mamas
The clock is ticking. Have you bought Mom a mother’s day gift? If not, here’s some advice from WBHM’s Tanya Ott: Forget the candy and the flowers. Give mom some extra hours of sleep!
So it’s pretty ironic that I’m doing this story. On Wednesday I worked a 20 hour day covering the Gulf oil spill. But it turns out there are lots of moms like me. It’s 6:30 in the morning and Jennifer Kelley has already been up for hours with her baby.
“Ava Claire started our day off at 4:45 this morning. Say ‘I woke up! I was ready to eat!’ And then Davis woke up shortly after 5.”
Two year old Davis is dressed and just needs help buckling his sandals. Then it’s off to school for the kids and work for mom. Kelley works 12 hour days and is on call most nights and weekends. A study from the Sloan Work and Family Research Network finds that more women are working extra long shifts and nights. And those night workers report getting on average 45 minutes less sleep than daytime workers. Kelley says she gets just 4 hours of sleep a night.
“But it’s not to a point where I feel like I can’t function. I just don’t think my body requires much of it.”
Mary Umlauf is a sleep researcher at the University of Alabama
“In America we really undermine the value of sleep. We can probably blame it on Benjamin Franklin, early to rise! I’ve always read, you know you can get an extra hour of productivity by simply getting up earlier. What that does is you just shave off what is actually, physiologically required for you.”
A study released this week in the journal Sleep examines the sleep patterns of more than a million people around the world. Researchers found that people who get less than six hours of sleep a night are 12 percent more likely to die prematurely. And short of death there’s a whole host of other problems, says Mary Umlauf.
“Lack of sleep is statistically associated with cancer, obesity, any number of chronic health issues which are really plaguing our society.”
Umlauf says most people need 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night.
Jennifer Kelley, that mom we heard from earlier, she knows this way too well. She’s the nurse manager of the mother-baby unit of UAB’s new Women and Infants Center.
“So in here we’ve got little babies that we’re watching because mama needed some rest.”
Kelley says she tells new moms to get as much sleep as they can. But she admits she doesn’t really take her own advice.
Me either! So kids, I have just one request this Mother’s Day. I love breakfast in bed. But please, not before 9 a.m.!
Birmingham is 3rd worst in the Southeast for ozone pollution, new report says
The American Lung Association's "State of the Air" report shows some metro areas in the Gulf States continue to have poor air quality.
Why haven’t Kansas and Alabama — among other holdouts — expanded access to Medicaid?
Only 10 states have not joined the federal program that expands Medicaid to people who are still in the "coverage gap" for health care
Once praised, settlement to help sickened BP oil spill workers leaves most with nearly nothing
Thousands of ordinary people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say they got sick. A court settlement was supposed to help compensate them, but it hasn’t turned out as expected.
Q&A: How harm reduction can help mitigate the opioid crisis
Maia Szalavitz discusses harm reduction's effectiveness against drug addiction, how punitive policies can hurt people who need pain medication and more.
The Gulf States Newsroom is hiring a Community Engagement Producer
The Gulf States Newsroom is seeking a curious, creative and collaborative professional to work with our regional team to build up engaged journalism efforts.
Gambling bills face uncertain future in the Alabama legislature
This year looked to be different for lottery and gambling legislation, which has fallen short for years in the Alabama legislature. But this week, with only a handful of meeting days left, competing House and Senate proposals were sent to a conference committee to work out differences.
