It’s unclear how much the rate of aging affects women’s health and death.

Women make many sacrifices for their children. Now, a new study suggests that pregnancy accelerates aging in young mothers. Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York examined the reproductive histories and DNA samples of 1,735 participants in a long-term, ongoing health study in the Philippines that examines the impact of fertility on the aging process. protector.

Six different “epigenetic clocks,” or genetic instruments that measure biological age based on patterns of DNA methylation processes, were used to calculate age. According to the study involving 825 young women, each pregnancy a woman reported resulted in an additional two to three months of biological aging. Women who reported more pregnancies during the six-year follow-up period also showed a greater increase in biological aging during this period. As a result, they found that women who had been pregnant in the past looked “biologically older” than those who had never given birth.

The association between pregnancy and biological aging remained the same even when the researchers took into account the participants’ environment, smoking habits, socioeconomic level and genetic diversity.

Notably, this effect was not reported in men who were fathers. This suggests that this effect is related to pregnancy or breastfeeding.

“Our findings suggest that pregnancy accelerates biological aging and that these effects are evident in younger, more fertile women. Our results are also the first to track the same women over time, dividing the number of pregnancies each changes in her fertility are linked to changes in her biological age,” said lead author Calen Ryan, associate research scientist at the Columbia Center on Aging.

He also called the finding “remarkable” because pregnancy is associated with changes at the molecular level. “This highlights how we have overlooked pregnancy and other key aspects of women’s health when studying the aging process,” Mr Ryan said. fox news.

Mr Ryan said the overall impact was small and likely related to high fertility rates and inconsistent access to health care and nutrition. “We still have much to learn about the role of pregnancy and other aspects of reproduction in the aging process,” he added.

It’s unclear how much the rate of aging affects women’s health and death. “The message here isn’t all doom and gloom – but it does highlight the fact that we are so focused on the outcome for babies that we often forget to look after mothers. Strong medical, social and nutritional support for new mothers The support is that in the long term that is always the best policy,” Mr Ryan said.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.