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Helsinki (pte041/08.02.2005/15:55) - Women who are older when they have babies may live longer than younger mothers, new research suggests. As the News Scotsman http://www.news.scotsman.com reports, a new study claims to have discovered a link between late motherhood and long life in Finland.
Researchers looked in depth at the life spans of families in Finland, tracing the generations back to the 18th century, and discovered that women who gave birth to their first children later lived longer. They also found that daughters inherited certain reproductive traits from their mothers. These included the number of children raised to adulthood and the age at which they had their first child. During analysis of this life-span data, the researchers found that women who delayed childbirth, or waited longer between births, tended to live longer.
The Finnish study claimed that women who lived longer passed the gene for longevity on to their offspring, starting the trend for mothers who notched up old age. However, according to the researchers, there are also distinct advantages for a woman giving birth at a young age, including babies being generally healthier and better fed. Men's life spans were unrelated to the age at which they had children. According to the researchers, this may illustrate the fact that a man's reproductive fitness largely depends on his partner.
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