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REVIEW article
Front. Sleep
Sec. Sleep, Behavior and Mental Health
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsle.2025.1545258
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring the Impact of Sleep on Women's Health View all 5 articles
Impact of Night Shift Work on Women's Fertility, Pregnancy and Menopause
Provisionally accepted- 1 Christiana Care Health System, Wilmington, Delaware, United States
- 2 Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
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A growing body of literature examines how shift work affects different aspects of women’s reproductive cycles, ranging from fertility to pregnancy to menopause. This review summarizes what is known about how shift work affects women’s reproductive cycles, with a particular emphasis on fertility, fecundity and the impact of shift work on maternal and fetal outcomes. While the overall impact of night shift work is complex and remains incompletely understood, evidence suggests that shift work adversely impacts reproductive health and pregnancy outcomes.
Keywords: shift work, pregnancy outcomes, Birth outcome, working hours, Fertility, Fecundability, Menopause
Received: 14 Dec 2024; Accepted: 24 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lee, Moawad and Pien. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Grace W. Pien, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.