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Before a baby sees its first sunrise, it is already receiving signals about day and night. Melatonin, a hormone released mainly at night, can pass from the mother through the placenta. The placenta supplies the developing fetus with oxygen and nutrients.

This may help explain interest in a Japanese study of 31,528 mothers and children. It found a link between working night shifts during pregnancy and possible developmental difficulties in children at age four. But it could not show that night work caused those difficulties.

Researchers compared women who did not work night shifts, women who stopped between two pregnancy surveys, and women who reported night shifts at both surveys. Working just one night shift a month counted as night work. The study did not examine whether more frequent shifts carried greater risks.

Children whose mothers reported night shifts at both stages had a 29% to 34% higher relative risk of being flagged for possible difficulties with communication, fine motor skills (such as picking up small objects) or social skills, compared with children whose mothers did not work nights.

That does not mean a third of these children had difficulties. Across all groups, about 13% of children were flagged for a possible difficulty in at least one area.

Parents answered questions about their children's abilities. These were screening checks, not medical diagnoses .

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