14 augustus, 2025
This year’s Spring Symposium, jointly organized by NSWO, SVNL and VKS, took place at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital (WKZ) in Utrecht. It was an inspiring and insightful afternoon focused on sleep research across the early stages of life: from pregnancy through adolescence.
The day started off with a hands-on NICU workshop for a lucky group of early birds. After lunch, the main program kicked off with a series of engaging presentations covering a broad range of topics in pediatric sleep research. The first talk, by dr. Marijke Gordijn, explored how sleep plays a role even before we’re born. She highlighted the importance of chronobiology during pregnancy, explaining how maternal hormonal rhythms act as zeitgebers for the unborn child. Interestingly, a mother’s sleep stability influences the newborn’s internal clock, up to 6 months after birth! Afterwards, dr. Desi Kocevska discussed different trajectories of childhood sleep – diving into MRI markers, genetic predisposition and how early life adversity may interact with those to increase the risk for sleep problems in early childhood. She also explained how signs of genetic susceptibility for insomnia can already appear in early childhood. Then, prof. Carolina de Weerth followed with findings on the benefits of skin-to-skin contact after birth. Her research showed that this can positively impact sleep duration and reduce crying bouts in newborns. She also discussed the influence of environmental factors like outdoor napping and room-sharing on both sleep patterns and physiological markers such as cortisol recovery.
After a short coffee break, dr. Jeroen Dudink from WKZ took the stage to present ongoing sleep research within the hospital. Explaining how sleep changes from birth to adolescence, he also emphasized the crucial role of advocating for sleep as a core component of healthcare across all settings. Moving on to a bit further in life, Danique Heemskerk introduced the Charge Your Brainzzz project. A practical initiative aimed at improving sleep among secondary school students. The project has already led to actionable changes, such as discouraging the release of grades late at night to reduce student anxiety. She also touched on the importance of parental involvement, creating healthy sleep environments, and the potential impact of social media. To end the afternoon on a festive note, we celebrated the 10th birthday of Vereniging Kind & Slaap with dr. Sigrid Pillen. She reflected on a decade of progress in bridging research and clinical practice for children’s sleep health.
In the midst of all the interesting talks, the NSWO Early Career Grant was also awarded. The NSWO awards this grant to stimulate and support early career researchers to present scientific work at conferences, to visit a lab abroad or follow a sleep-research related course. We would like to congratulate this year’s recipients: Lucija Blaževski and Fanxiang Mao!
As per tradition, the day concluded with drinks, snacks, and plenty of lively conversation, a great way to reflect on the ideas shared and reconnect with colleagues in the field. A big thank-you to all those involved in the organization from the NSWO, SVNL and VKS for putting together another successful Spring Symposium!
Written by Ploon de Potter and Joyce Reesen