Health Impacts on Children Born to Half-Middle Fathers

Medical Video: How Birth Order Affects Who You Are

The age of a mother is often considered a genetic risk factor in the child, but current research shows that the age of the father also poses certain risks, especially in terms of their child's mental health. Men may have the advantage of having a lifetime of fertility, but the more they mature, the genetic mutation rate that is transmitted through sperm increases significantly, so that it can make their children have an increased risk of psychiatric disorders, especially autism and schizophrenia.

Disease that can be owned by a father's child who is too old

The researchers found that in more than 2 million children born in Sweden, those born to fathers aged 45 years and over will be more susceptible to problems such as autism, attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, suicide attempts, and drug abuse. Other problems include poor grades in school and low IQ.

In addition, results from the Malaysian Mental Health Survey (MMHS) published online in March 2011 showed that children who have fathers at least 11 years older than their mothers are at increased risk of certain mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and phobias.

Percentage of risk of mental disorders in children

Children who have fathers aged 19 years or less have a 9% risk level of mental health problems. Regardless of age, if the father's age difference is 11 years older than the mother's, then the risk level will increase to 24%. The risk of the biggest mental disorder (ie as much as 42%) is seen in children of fathers aged more than or equal to 50 years, with wives at least 11 years younger than their husbands.

A study conducted by D'Onofrio and colleagues involved approximately 2.6 million children born in Sweden from 1973 to 2001. The result, when compared to children born to a 24-year-old father, a child who has a 45-year-old father has 3, 5 times the chance of having autism and 13 times more likely to have ADHD.

In addition, children born to 45-year-old fathers are more likely to have psychotic disorders, 25 times more likely to have bipolar disorder, and about 2.5 times more likely to have suicidal behavior or drug abuse problems.

Age of father affects sperm

The effect of aging on genes is still considered the main cause of mental health disorders of someone whose father has children in old age. Increased age of the father is associated with spontaneous mutation changes (changes in genetic material for no apparent reason) in the chromosome nucleotide sequence. The older a man is, the more vulnerable their sperm are to experiencing spontaneous genetic mutations.

Older men are actually less fortunate compared to older women, because of the high level of sperm cell division. McGrath shows that during a woman's life, oocyte cells (cells in the ovary that make up the ovum) only divide 23 times. Women are born by always carrying all their eggs. As for a man, sperm will divide every 16 days after experiencing puberty.

"When a man is 40 years old, sperm cells have performed 660 times cell division, and 800 times at the age of 50," he said. The amount of cell division is defined as the high risk for genetic change.

If I am no longer young, can I not have children?

Women who have older partners or couples who have an age greater than or equal to 10 years of course are not prohibited from starting a family. Because even though they have a risk of mental health problems in children, the link between age and autism is relatively weak.

The experts also stressed that although old age is one factor in autism in children, it is not the cause. Old age does not explain why there are some children who are autistic while others do not. "Not all older parents will have children with autism, and not all autistic children are born to older parents," said Michael Rosanoff, Director of Public Health Research at Autism Speaks.

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