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The rate of "premature" death was higher. Childless women were four times more likely to die during the interval covered by the study than women who had borne children.
Yeah, but that's not anywhere from the original post.
I'm curious what the causes were, and what the study interval was. Charles' link covered childless couples who were doing in vitro (which seemed limiting), and I can only access the synopsis and not the full studies.
As a childless woman I wanna know if I'm already past the study period!!! /lol
Yeah, but that's not anywhere from the original post.
I'm curious what the causes were, and what the study interval was. Charles' link covered childless couples who were doing in vitro (which seemed limiting), and I can only access the synopsis and not the full studies.
As a childless woman I wanna know if I'm already past the study period!!! /lol
This was just an observational study. It does not prove any causes for the observed differences. It just states what is for the particular couples in the study.
I do not think the entire study is available anywhere online yet.
There is no link about my post Maybe you should have looked at the posts before mine
Most woman, myself included, do things before we have kids we don't do after we have them like go clubbing, party, drive a little faster than we should and make poor choices. Most responsible mothers give that up after having a baby.
Anyway that was my theory because there was no link!
We ll, then how do you explain Britney Spears? Casey Anthony? Why do parents assume childless people party or live wrecklessly? Sometimes it is the parents make the poor choices by haivng kids they weren't ready for. Even before marriage, this childless woman never got into the bar scene. I tried one and didn't see the point. (BTW, I went with two parents) I love how these studies target groups they deem not politically correct.
I can't see how a death rate can be 4x higher. The death rate is 100%, everybody dies. How can it be higher or lower?
If there was a 100% death rate (everybody) among all childless women, the death rate next year would be 0% because there would be none left to die.
This is not "breaking" news, it is broken news, which is, sadly, epidemic in the news industry.
The death rate applies only to the time interval covered by the study, not to the lifetimes of everyone in the study.
We do not have the exact figures, so I will make some up. There were about 20,000 couples in the study.
Suppose that by the end of the study, 25 women who had a baby had died and 100 women who had never had a baby had died.
Then the women who did not have children were four times more likely to die by the end of the study. The women without children were more likely to die earlier than the women who had babies.
We cannot say anything about possible causes of the difference. It's just an observation.
The death rate applies only to the time interval covered by the study, not to the lifetimes of everyone in the study.
We do not have the exact figures, so I will make some up. There were about 20,000 couples in the study.
Suppose that by the end of the study, 25 women who had a baby had died and 100 women who had never had a baby had died.
Then the women who did not have children were four times more likely to die by the end of the study. The women without children were more likely to die earlier than the women who had babies.
We cannot say anything about possible causes of the difference. It's just an observation.
That would be applicable (25 and 100) only if there were 10,000 couples who had children and 10,000 couples who did not. Mathematically, that would soon result in no childless women to sample anymore. If a fairly advanced age were sampled, and childless couples had throughout the years had four times the deaths, that would yield, compounded over only five years, a ratio of 1024:1 of childless women dying in excess of mothers, and after ten years, a ratio of over a million to one for the decade. A compounded discrepancy rate as high as 4:1 very quickly becomes an unsupportably astronomical number.
I'm not contesting the actuarial probability of childless mothers dying younger, but the 4:1 ratio is just somebody at a news hack's desk misunderstanding a table of figures that they found.
That would be applicable (25 and 100) only if there were 10,000 couples who had children and 10,000 couples who did not. Mathematically, that would soon result in no childless women to sample anymore. If a fairly advanced age were sampled, and childless couples had throughout the years had four times the deaths, that would yield, compounded over only five years, a ratio of 1024:1 of childless women dying in excess of mothers, and after ten years, a ratio of over a million to one for the decade. A compounded discrepancy rate as high as 4:1 very quickly becomes an unsupportably astronomical number.
I'm not contesting the actuarial probability of childless mothers dying younger, but the 4:1 ratio is just somebody at a news hack's desk misunderstanding a table of figures that they found.
You only sample once, not repeatedly. You do not "compound" it. The study covered from 1994 to 2005, so only deaths that occurred during that time interval were included.
"Having a child cut the risk of early death, particularly among women, the analysis showed.
The early death rate from circulatory disease, cancers, and accidents among childless women was four times as high as that among those who gave birth to their own child, and 50% lower [than childless women -Suzy Q] among women who adopted.
Similarly, rates of death were around twice as high among men who did not become parents, either biologically or through adoption."
Childless women are not more likely to die than women who have children. Ultimately, 100% of the women will die. But by the end of the study in 2008, more childless women had already died. They died sooner.
In reading the detailed report, one thing jumps out at me. It takes into account ONLY people who were in a marital relationship who wanted to have children, with an intense enough desire that they sought to have medical intervention. Not counted in the survey were people who never married or who were content to not have any children. So the very slight higher death rate reflects only people who were seriously frustrated and felt deprived of a critical development in their life. Such a discrepancy would probably be found in any study of people who experienced a life-long disappointment in one of their central goals. (By 'very slight', I mean 2% instead of 1%.)
For example, people who dropped out of college would be 4 times as likely to die as those who got a degree. People who bought used cars 4 times as likely to die as those who bought new cars. People whose favorite team never wins the Super Bowl or World Series 4 times as likely to die as those who root for the winners. People who go bankrupt 4 times more likely to die than those in financial security. When studying for an event that is filtered to have a huge impact on overall fulfillment to the life goals of the subjects, it is going to be reflected in overall success in life, including longevity. If you have a strong and compelling desire to have children, and are denied that life goal, it shouldn't surprise anyone that your frustration will impact your will to live. However, if you never wanted children in the first place, not having any might even increase your life expectancy. The sample studied did not include anyone in that group.
In reading the detailed report, one thing jumps out at me. It takes into account ONLY people who were in a marital relationship who wanted to have children, with an intense enough desire that they sought to have medical intervention. Not counted in the survey were people who never married or who were content to not have any children. So the very slight higher death rate reflects only people who were seriously frustrated and felt deprived of a critical development in their life. Such a discrepancy would probably be found in any study of people who experienced a life-long disappointment in one of their central goals. (By 'very slight', I mean 2% instead of 1%.)
For example, people who dropped out of college would be 4 times as likely to die as those who got a degree. People who bought used cars 4 times as likely to die as those who bought new cars. People whose favorite team never wins the Super Bowl or World Series 4 times as likely to die as those who root for the winners. People who go bankrupt 4 times more likely to die than those in financial security. When studying for an event that is filtered to have a huge impact on overall fulfillment to the life goals of the subjects, it is going to be reflected in overall success in life, including longevity. If you have a strong and compelling desire to have children, and are denied that life goal, it shouldn't surprise anyone that your frustration will impact your will to live. However, if you never wanted children in the first place, not having any might even increase your life expectancy. The sample studied did not include anyone in that group.
The authors did not try to generalize the findings to everyone. It only applies to the group that was studied, couples with involuntary infertility. That means that was is true in Denmark may also be true in or countries --- or not. Note that the Danes have access to fertility treatment through their national health insurance, which removes the financial barrier that exists for some infertile couples in the US.
And until you study it, you do not know whether other life goals, fulfilled or not, have an effect on longevity. It might seem logical, but until you crunch the numbers you do not know.
Perhaps the authors will do another study on couples who are childless by choice.
Don't try to make more of the study than is there. It is merely an observation of Danish couples with involuntary infertility studied between 1994 and 2005. That's all it is.
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Maybe you should have looked at the posts before mine 
