Post Date December, 02 2023
According to Singapore Lianhe Zaobao, the research found that the older the father was when the child was born, the greater the risk of mental illness and academic problems when the child grew up.
Psychological disorders refer to autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), mental illness, and bipolar disorder; Academic problems refer to failing exams, low educational qualifications, and poor performance in IQ tests.
Researchers from Indiana University in the United States and the Caroline School of Medicine in Sweden conducted a study on 2.6 million children born in Sweden from 1973 to 2001.
They found through comparing data from siblings with similar growth environments that the father's age at birth is closely related to the child's psychological and academic problems in the future.
Research shows that children of 45 year old men are 25 times and 3.5 times more likely to develop bipolar disorder and autism than children of 20 to 24 year old men. In addition, children with older fathers are 13 times more likely to develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with younger fathers. "This discovery shocked us," said Donofrio, the lead author of the study and an associate professor at Indiana University
He stated that the correlation between father's reproductive age and child related issues is much greater than previously believed in research.
The global reproductive age of both men and women has increased significantly in the past 40 years. Taking the United States as an example, the age at which women give birth for the first time has increased from 21.5 years in 1970 to 25.6 years in 2011, while men have increased by about 3 years.
Donofrio said that their findings do not necessarily mean that children of older fathers will have problems. But as more and more research shows that children of older parents are prone to problems, the medical research community should inform people of these risks when making decisions such as childbirth.
