Many parents tend to accidentally say that a child takes away too much strength and, consequently, health, however, Danish experts from Aarhus University are sure of the opposite - according to their study, children not only do no harm to their father and mother, but also beneficially affect their life expectancy. Moreover, the child has a particularly strong effect on women.
According to experts, the main factors that increase the risk of premature death, and at the same time the least dangerous for couples with children, are smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, depression and many other mental disorders - but scientists say that this is only part of those problems which the child of their parents can fence off.
During the study, specialists carefully studied data on more than 21 thousand couples who were deprived of the opportunity to have children naturally due to health problems at one of the partners, and therefore were forced to resort to in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, only 15,210 couples were able to have a child artificially. Another 1564 couples did this through adoption, and the rest remained childless.
When scientists analyzed mortality rates among all people under observation, they found: in women with at least one child, the risk of premature death was 4 times lower than those who did not have children.
Professor Esben Agerbo, who led the study, said that the relationship between a person’s life expectancy and having a child has not yet been fully disclosed. But, despite this, its existence is obvious, the expert believes.
