Washington - Could fatherhood literally kill you?
Researchers have observed for a long time that men who have children at a young age tend to die earlier.
But this finding has been mostly dismissed as a quirk of statistics, one that most researchers assumed could be explained by the fact that they were poorer, had less education or other socio-economic factors rather than the stresses of fatherhood itself.
Finnish scientists seeking to discover what factors were at play looked at 30 500 men born between 1940 and 1950 and who became fathers by the age of 45.
They tracked them using the country’s census until death or till they were 54.
In the 10-year monitoring period, about one in 20 of the dads died, with 21 percent dying from heart disease and 16 percent from alcohol-related causes.
On one end were the young dads – those who had their first child by the time they were 22. They had a 26 percent higher risk of death than those who fathered their first by 25 or 26.
At the other end were those who became dads between 30 and 44. They had a 25 percent lower risk of death.
In trying to explain the difference, the researchers, based at the University of Helsinki, looked at education, location of residence, marital status, number of other children, year of birth and a host of other possible reasons.
They came up with nothing: “The findings of our study suggest that the association between young fatherhood and mid-life mortality is likely to be causal,” Elina Einiö and his co-authors wrote in a study published recently in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
While having a child at a young age may be less disruptive for a man than a woman, the researchers said it may still cause “considerable psychological and economic stress for a young man and deprive him of the ability to invest in his own well-being”.
The researchers offered a longer explanation in the study: “Fatherhood often requires financial commitments over a long period of time and can reduce young men’s ability to invest in their own human capital.
“The need to provide immediate financial support for a family may interrupt investment in job skills or career development, and push young men into lower-paid employment, which could have adverse consequences on their later health.
“Early-timed parenthood may also disrupt psychological transition from adolescence to adulthood, and leave little time for exploration and appropriate individuation.
“Young fathers, co-resident with their children, have been suggested to experience an increase in depressive symptoms during the years after the birth of their first child.”
Einiö also told Medical News Today that many pregnancies at that age may be unplanned: “It is possible that suddenly taking on the combined role of father and breadwinner may have caused considerable psychological and economic stress for a young man not ready for his new role.”
So does this mean having a child at an older age is better? Not necessarily.
Recent studies that show that the health issues in babies born to older dads – usually defined as 40 and above – are numerous, perhaps as many as those born to older mothers.
Studies published in the Nature journal have found that rates of autism and schizophrenia rise dramatically with paternal age. And a paper in the American Journal of Men’s Health shows a link between older dads and pre-term birth and low birth weight.
Kevin McConway, a professor at the Open University, told the Daily Mirror that the researchers’ theory about the stresses of fatherhood impacting a man’s health is certainly “plausible”, but added the findings should be taken in a historical context: “These fathers grew up in Finland during and soon after the Second World War. Social conditions in, say, Britain now are very much different from their experience… We just don’t know whether the findings would be the same for young men nowadays, in Finland or anywhere else.”
Washington Post