Inside Women’s Sleep Health: Key Influences Across the Lifespan-Inside Women’s Sleep Health: Key Influences Across the Lifespan Webcast

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The webinar, hosted by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, focused on women’s sleep health across the lifespan from biological, clinical, and sociocultural perspectives. It began with housekeeping and a patient story from Katie Page, who described how her symptoms were repeatedly dismissed, leading to delayed diagnosis and difficulty adapting to CPAP. Her story highlighted the need for better patient education, empathy, and shared decision-making.<br /><br />Dr. Carolyn D’Ambrosio reviewed how sleep changes across female life stages. She explained that puberty, pregnancy, and menopause are major vulnerable periods, with hormonal shifts affecting sleep duration, fragmentation, insomnia, restless legs, and sleep-disordered breathing. Pregnancy was emphasized as a high-risk time for snoring, obstructive sleep apnea, hypertension, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes. She also noted that common screening tools may underperform in women.<br /><br />Dr. Cynthia Peña-Orbea discussed sex differences in diagnosis and treatment response for sleep disorders, especially obstructive sleep apnea. Women often present with fatigue, headaches, nocturia, insomnia, and mood symptoms rather than classic snoring or sleepiness. She noted that women have different polysomnographic patterns, may be underdiagnosed by standard questionnaires, and remain underrepresented in PAP and cardiovascular outcomes research. She also reviewed insomnia and restless legs, which are more common in women.<br /><br />Dr. Molly Billings addressed societal and cultural influences, including gender roles, unpaid labor, caregiving, cognitive burden, race, discrimination, and neighborhood conditions, all of which can worsen sleep health.<br /><br />Finally, Dr. Susie Bartich summarized the AASM Women’s Sleep Health Task Force, including a summit, ongoing report development, future webinars, and efforts to expand research and awareness. The session ended with a Q&A focused on improving recruitment of women into sleep research.

Keywords

women's sleep health

sleep disorders

obstructive sleep apnea

pregnancy

menopause

insomnia

restless legs syndrome

sleep research

gender differences

AASM webinar