IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v389y1997i6647d10.1038_38148.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Middle-aged mothers live longer

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas T. Perls

    (Department of Medicine)

  • Laura Alpert

    (Department of Medicine)

  • Ruth C. Fretts

    (Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School)

Abstract

Comparing two groups of women born in 1896, we found that women who lived to at least age 100 were four times more likely to have had children while in their forties than women who survived only to age 73. The ability to have children in the fifth decade may be a marker for slow ageing and subsequent ability to achieve extreme longevity. We propose that the evolutionary pressure to extend lifespan is closely linked to prolonging the period of time during which women can bear children.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas T. Perls & Laura Alpert & Ruth C. Fretts, 1997. "Middle-aged mothers live longer," Nature, Nature, vol. 389(6647), pages 133-133, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:389:y:1997:i:6647:d:10.1038_38148
    DOI: 10.1038/38148
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/38148
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/38148?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrice Nicholas & Mary Smith, 2006. "Demographic challenges and health in Germany," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 25(5), pages 479-487, December.
    2. Grundy, Emily & Kravdal, Øystein, 2010. "Fertility history and cause-specific mortality: A register-based analysis of complete cohorts of Norwegian women and men," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1847-1857, June.
    3. Spence, Naomi J. & Eberstein, Isaac W., 2009. "Age at first birth, parity, and post-reproductive mortality among white and black women in the US, 1982-2002," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1625-1632, May.
    4. Gabriele Doblhammer, 1999. "Reproductive history and mortality later in life: a comparative study of England & Wales and Austria," MPIDR Working Papers WP-1999-004, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    5. Gabriele Doblhammer & James W. Vaupel, 1999. "Reproductive history and mortality later in life for Austrian women," MPIDR Working Papers WP-1999-012, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    6. Yi Zeng & James W. Vaupel, 2003. "Association of late childbearing with healthy longevity among the oldest-old in China," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2003-020, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    7. Grundy, Emily & Tomassini, Cecilia, 2005. "Fertility history and health in later life: a record linkage study in England and Wales," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 217-228, July.
    8. Smith, Ken R. & Mineau, Geraldine P. & Garibotti, Gilda & Kerber, Richard, 2009. "Effects of childhood and middle-adulthood family conditions on later-life mortality: Evidence from the Utah Population Database, 1850-2002," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 1649-1658, May.
    9. Heidi Hanson & Ken Smith & Zachary Zimmer, 2015. "Reproductive History and Later-Life Comorbidity Trajectories: A Medicare-Linked Cohort Study From the Utah Population Database," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(6), pages 2021-2049, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:389:y:1997:i:6647:d:10.1038_38148. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.