14 DAY TRIAL // Babies born to young mothers, especially to those younger than 25, are more likely to live longer than their peers delivered by older moms, states a new study carried out by a team of researchers at the University of Chicago. The study was funded by the The U.S. National Institute on Aging and the Society of Actuaries and its findings have been presented at a meeting of the Population Association of America and more recently at a meeting of the Gerontological Society of America.
The US researching team conducted their study on 198 centerians living in America. Scientists investigated their data and found that the largest part of them have been the first-born babies to the mother, therefore they were delivered into the world when their mothers were quite young. Overall results of the study showed that babies born to mothers younger than 25 had a two-fold chance of living to be 100 or older than their peers who have been carried in the womb by older women.
The current research led by experts at the University of Chicago comes a month after a study run by a team of scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) who found that women who want to become pregnant and give birth to a child while in their 50's are safe from any psychological or physical health disorder.
Dr. Richard Paulson, co-author of the University of Chicago study, stated that society's prejudices about older mothers should be put a stop to, one way or the other, as women who give birth to babies later in their lives can be as good parents as their younger counterparts. He said: "Society still has these feelings about motherhood. The way we view the mother is much more circumscribed than for the father: she should be young and attractive. That is underneath all this talk about the ethics and legality of treating older women. Deep down, society has a fixed idea of what motherhood should be, and this causes deep discomfort."
However, the team cautioned that women who are over 55 have an increased risk of encountering pregnancy complications, such as preeclempsia. After investigating the findings of the 2 studies, the conclusion would be that, even if it is safe for women to conceive and give birth to babies later in life, their offsprings will have shorter life spans as compared to those delivered by younger women.