Eating close to bedtime ups risk of GERD in pregnant women

Short meal-to-bedtime (MTBT) appears to induce gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) during pregnancy, according to a study.

“This dieting habit was significantly associated with reflux symptom frequency and reflux-related insomnia,” the authors said.

Four hundred pregnant women aged ≥18 years visiting the antenatal clinic of Gia-Dinh People’s Hospital, Vietnam, were included in this cross-sectional study. GERD was characterized by troublesome heartburn or regurgitation at least once a week. Reflux-related insomnia was defined as having difficulties in initiating or maintaining sleep through the night. MTBT was deemed “short” if it was ≤2 hours in more than two-thirds of days in a week.

A total of 154 (38.5 percent) patients with GERD and 20 (13.0 percent) with reflux-related insomnia were identified. Multivariate analysis revealed three factors that were significantly associated with GERD: third trimester (odds ratio [OR], 1.66, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.03–2.69), previous history of typical reflux symptoms (OR, 9.05, 95 percent CI, 5.29–15.50), and short MTBT (OR, 12.73, 95 percent CI, 2.92–55.45).

The frequency of reflux symptoms showed a progressive increase across subgroups of patients with no short MTBT, either daytime or night-time short MTBT, and with both daytime and night-time short MTBT. In addition, night-time MTBT correlated with an increased risk of reflux-related insomnia (OR, 4.60, 95 percent CI, 1.64–12.92).

These findings provide evidence that short MTBT is a predominant risk factor for GERD in pregnant women.