Childless couples risk premature death
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Scientists from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, conducted a study and concluded that childless couples are at significant risk of premature death, especially for women.
There is an expression that sometimes in the hearts of parents say - "native children in the coffin will drive." Odako, in fact, everything is quite different. It is the impossibility of having children that can lead to premature death.
The study of scientists sheds light on the age-old question of whether children really can fill life with happiness and joy and, thus, extend the years of their parents. And indeed, the answer to this question is positive. Compared to childless couples, happy parents live longer.
The only exception are couples who do not want to have children at all. The high risk of early departure from life lies in wait for those families who tried to become parents, but their attempts were not crowned with success.
Among the possible causes of early death, scientists call alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, mental illness, as well as physical ailments associated with infertility.
The results of researches of scientists are published in the pages of the scientific journal "Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health". And the data received by experts are based on the analysis of statistical information for the period from 1994 to 2008.
According to the researchers, a variety of statistics, which included income indicators, birth and death records, information on the presence of physical and mental diseases, as well as in vitro fertilization, helped to identify the trend in the duration and quality of life of childless couples and families with children.
Also, the authors of the research study examined the state of health of 21,276 couples, residents of Denmark, who could not conceive of the child naturally and turned to the method of in vitro fertilization.
Specialists have found that in childless women, the risk of premature death is increased fourfold than those who have known the happiness of motherhood. Risk factors are cardiovascular diseases, development of malignant tumors and even accidents. In comparison with childless women, those who decided to adopt a child, reduced the risk of premature death by half.
As for men, in principle for them the same regularity is true, but with the reservation that there is no difference between adoption and biological fatherhood.
Conclusions of scientists may seem unoriginal and too simple, because lonely people can start the disease and rarely make visits to doctors. However, how to explain the fact that couples with children and childless have the same level of mental illness. Only the couples who adopted the child had a lower risk. However, this may be due to the fact that it is not so easy to adopt a child.
Of course, specialists also took into account such risk factors leading to earlier death, as chronic diseases, smoking, education, income level and so on.
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