Summary: Midwives have been
saying this for ages, and researchers of the related field too have reported that
the children delivered by older women are at greater health risks. Childbearing
at older ages is understood to increase the risk of negative pregnancy outcomes
such as Down syndrome, as well as increase the risk that the children will
develop Alzheimer's disease, hypertension, and diabetes later in life.
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| It is a Declaration ..... Not a Debate |
A research reported in journal Population and Development Review, put
this old age observation in a fix. It suggests children of older mothers are
healthier, taller and obtain more education than the children of younger
mothers. The main reason is that in industrialized countries educational
opportunities are increasing, and thanks to advancement in medicine science, people
are getting healthier by the year. In other words, report supports old age
pregnancy and birth.
Methdology: Researchers used
data from over 1.5 million Swedish men and women born between 1960 and 1991 to
examine the relationship between maternal age at the time of birth, and height,
physical fitness, grades in high school, and educational attainment of the
children. Physical fitness and height are good proxies for overall health, and
educational attainment is a key determinant of occupational achievement and
lifetime opportunities.
In their statistical analyses, researchers compared
siblings who share the same biological mother and father. Siblings share 50% of
their genes, and also grow up in the same household environment with the same
parents.
Results:
1. Women in the developed world are having
children at later ages. Mean age at first birth, which has increased in each of
the 23 OECD countries since 1970, now averages 28 years.
2. Advanced maternal age is associated with
increased risk of poor perinatal outcomes and increased risk of mortality and
cancer in adulthood. The research documenting these negative outcomes, however,
neglects the potential benefits of being born at a later date.
3. Delaying parenthood means that the child is
born in a later birth cohort. This is beneficial, since form any important
outcomes related to health and educational attainment, long-term trends are
positive.
4. Researchers find that the total effect of
increasing maternal age-which includes individual-level factors such as reproductive
aging and changing social resources, as well as the positive impact of
improving macro-level period conditions-is consistently positive. This is true
even in cases where the individual-level effect is negative, because the
macro-level positive trends more than offset the negative effect.
5. Researchers found that when mothers delayed
childbearing to older ages, even as old as 40 or older, they had children who
were taller, had better grades in high school, and were more likely to go to
university.
Conclusions: The authors
concluded as “For example, a woman born in 1950 who had a child at the age of
20 would have given birth in 1970. If that same woman had a child at 40, she
would have given birth in 1990. Those twenty years make a huge difference. A
child born in 1990, for example, had a much higher probability of going to a
college or university than somebody born 20 years earlier. Moreover, the
benefits associated with being born in a later year outweigh the individual
risk factors arising from being born to an older mother. We need to develop a
different perspective on advanced maternal age. Expectant parents are typically
well aware of the risks associated with late pregnancy, but they are less aware
of the positive effects".
Article Citation: Barclay, K. and
Myrskyla, M. Advanced Maternal Age and Offspring Outcomes: Reproductive Aging
and Counterbalancing Period Trends. Population and Development Review 2016, 42(1),
69-94. (free copy)
Maternal-Age Stats from
the Study:
In 1968, approximately 75 percent of all births were to mothers aged less than
30, and fewer than 10 percent of births were to mothers aged 35 or above. Over
a 45-year period childbearing at later ages at all parities has become more
common; by 2013 approximately 60 percent of births were to mothers aged 30 or
older, and 5 percent to mothers aged 40 or older. There are many reasons for
the increase in the mean of maternal age at birth over these years. Much of the
fertility postponement has been attributed to the use of the contraceptive
pill, the expansion of career opportunities for women, and increasing economic
uncertainty.
