Autonomic cardiac profile in male and female healthcare professionals with and without preschoolers: differences evidenced by heart rate variability analysis

A reduced nocturnal cardiac vagal modulation has been observed in working women with preschoolers. Whether this adaptation also occurs in men remains an open question. The aim of this study was to analyze the cardiac autonomic profile of two groups of healthcare male professionals, one with and one without preschoolers, to be compared to females. Twenty-five working men with preschoolers (M_KID, age 35.41 ± 4.01 years) and 25 without (M_NOKID, 34.48 ± 6.00 years) were compared with 25 working women with preschoolers (W_KID, 37.7 ± 5.6 years) and 25 without (W_NOKID, 35.4 ± 7.2 years). A 24-h Holter electrocardiogram was performed for time and frequency domain analysis of the beat-to-beat variations of RR interval (RR) variability, during daytime (DAY) and nighttime (NIGHT). The power of RR variability in the high frequency band (HFRR) was considered as an index of cardiac vagal modulation. RR variability indices were similar in M_KID and M_NOKID during both DAY and NIGHT. In contrast, W_KID showed a reduced nocturnal HFRR compared to W_NOKID. The comparison of working men with and without preschoolers revealed no differences in the cardiac autonomic profile, in contrast with women. This suggests that sex and/or gender may represent a crucial factor in the cardiac neural control in the parental condition.