Women who give birth at an older age live slightly longer than those who do so earlier. Those who are able to become pregnant and give birth at a later point in their lives probably have good overall health, which also supports an older life expectancy.
To better understand the link between overall health and reproductive health specifically, as well as how this changes with age, at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands and his colleagues looked at more than 11,500 women from two existing studies. All the women lived to age 50 or older and had at least one child without the use of assisted reproductive techniques, such as IVF. No transgender men were included.
The researchers found that those who gave birth to their last child at an older age lived longer. Overall, every additional year was linked to an extra 22 days of life, with a statistical analysis suggesting this wasn鈥檛 a chance finding.
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When comparing the women who gave birth to their last child while aged 40 or younger to those who did so at 45 or older, they found that the latter group lived 17 months longer on average. 鈥淕iven all the risk factors of mortality, a 1.41 year difference can be considered as quite large,鈥� says van den Berg.
Previous research has linked , such as those that affect the blood and immune system, compared with giving birth while younger than 40. But according to van den Berg, women who give birth later in life may live longer because they are generally healthy, which both extends their lifespan and enables them to conceive when they are older.
Having long-lived parents or other relatives, however, wasn鈥檛 linked to the women giving birth at a later age. This suggests that the length of their reproductive health may not just be genetic, but also related to their lifestyles, according to the researchers. 鈥淥ther factors that support a longer lifespan are likely to have an impact on reproductive health, says van den Berg. He adds, however, that the team can鈥檛 rule out the role of genetics, with more research being required to dig into this.
How and why the age that a woman gives birth to her last child may influence her longevity is unclear, says at the Global Consortium for Reproductive Longevity and Equality in Novato, California. Better understanding the mechanisms driving that association could have profound implications for women鈥檚 health, she says.
medRxiv
