Childlessness May Increase Likelihood of Earlier Death
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Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Parents may live longer because of having children, according to a new study.
A study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health looked at more than 21,000 couples seeking in-vitro fertility treatments.
The authors discovered that women who were unsuccessful in having a child were four times more likely to die prematurely than women who were mothers from the following issues: circulatory disease, cancer and accidents.
Men were twice as likely to die early.
The risk of early death was low, and the researchers say there is not necessarily a cause-and-effect relationship between being childless and early death.
Yet, the researchers say their work suggests that mortality rates are high in those involuntarily childless.
There is some indication that trying and failing to have children may affect how long some people live.
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