Having Sons Can Shorten a Woman's Life Expectancy

[crassy]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... woman-life

The impact of having a boy compared with a girl is likely to be most pronounced in settings where resources such as food and health care are poor.

They found that if a woman in these communities was 37 years old at the time of having her last child, her life expectancy would vary depending on the sex of her children. She would live for another 33.1 years if she had no sons, another 32.7 years if she had three and another 32.4 years if she had six.

Michelle is pretty much screwed.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I feel sorry for the Ardnt mom if thats the case :o

[VooDooChild]

Clearly these people have never had teenaged girls! :lol:

Sorry. Seriously, I should go read the article now.

[August]

If food is short, the demands of a teenaged boy could result in an undernourished mother.

[crassy]

I feel sorry for the Ardnt mom if thats the case :o

Oh yeah, she is pretty much fucked. Seven Sisters' mum is a-ok though! :D

[apple1]

Looks rather bogus to me. Specific to Finnish culture, and pretty much statistically insignificant. Averages out to about 1 month shorter life per boy (again, in the particular culture that was "studied"). As a "general" thing (emphasis on general), however, I suspect that women do more to help their aging mothers than men tend to do (once more, generalizing, YMMV).

[Mama Mia]

Looks rather bogus to me. Specific to Finnish culture, and pretty much statistically insignificant. Averages out to about 1 month shorter life per boy (again, in the particular culture that was "studied"). As a "general" thing (emphasis on general), however, I suspect that women do more to help their aging mothers than men tend to do (once more, generalizing, YMMV).

Yeah, and it was not only a specific culture -- but a specific culture 200 years ago :roll: So who knows what factors were involved.

[snarktastic]

apple1 wrote:

Looks rather bogus to me. Specific to Finnish culture, and pretty much statistically insignificant. Averages out to about 1 month shorter life per boy (again, in the particular culture that was "studied"). As a "general" thing (emphasis on general), however, I suspect that women do more to help their aging mothers than men tend to do (once more, generalizing, YMMV).

Yeah, and it was not only a specific culture -- but a specific culture 200 years ago So who knows what factors were involved.

Still, I'm looking forward to sharing that with DS tomorrow :lol:

[Soldevi]

Hum. This article is shorter than what I have been reading about the study. In Finnish news articles it has been more spesific. They have analyzed people born before 1960 so not '200 years ago' only.

And the reasearcher says in Finnish article that mothers today should not be concerned about the study. Size of the family is smaller and nowadays we have access to better healthcare and nutrition and contraception. And he says that you shouldn't conclude from the study that giving birth to sons shortens lifespan. Helle has done similar kind of study earlier of Sami people, its results were that each son shortens life expectancy by 34 weeks and each daughter lengthens it by 23 weeks.

Hopefully this clarifies :)

Edit: Oh, and there have been speculation that this might be something to do with testosterone in woman's body because of the pregnancy with a boy. "In mammals, accumulating evidence now suggests high concentrations of testosterone circulating in a mother's blood impairs her immune system."