New research has shown that women who give birth later in life could live longer
If you’ve held off having children and are sick of the negative headlines, there’s a great bonus to holding off having kids has just come to light.
Scientists analysed data from a social and genetic investigation called the Long Life Family Study, which looked at 551 families with long-living members. The experts pinpointed the ages that 462 women had their last child and how long each of those women lived.
Women who've had children after they’re 33 years old are twice as likely to reach 95 as women who gave birth for the last time aged 29
And they found women who've had children after they’re 33 years old are twice as likely to reach 95 as women who gave birth for the last time aged 29, experts have said.
The revelation comes from research, published in Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society, and led by Dr Thomas Perls from Boston University Medical Center. ‘If a woman has those variants, she is able to reproduce and bear children for a longer period of time, increasing her chances of passing down those genes to the next generation,’ says Dr Perls.
‘This possibility may be a clue as to why 85 per cent of women live to 100 or more years while only 15 per cent of men do.’
But Dr Perls says that the study’s findings shouldn’t encourage women to wait to have children at an older age simply ‘to improve their own chances of living longer.’
‘The age at last childbirth can be a rate of ageing indicator,’ he says. ‘The natural ability to have a child at an older age likely indicates that a woman’s reproductive system is ageing slowly, and there so is the rest of her body.’
Recent statistics have showed that more women in the UK are having children over 50 than ever before.
How old were you when you had your first baby? Let us know in the comments box below.