Letters to the Editor
-
Double standards for having kids
This double standard effects would-be parents who want to adopt as well. Nevermind that the parents going through the effort to adopt are very likely to be just as "healthy" as the ones that gave the kids up - must we make sure they are nearly infalliable?
-
There are many men out there that think 45 is a reasonable age to have kids
I have to say I agree with anonymous on the fact that there are many men out there that think that 45 is a great age to start having children and seem oblivious of effects that that may have on future offspring - whether it be at the risk of the offspring's health or their own. And it is annoying to hear this from people clearly uneducated on the matter. I work only with men and they, along with so many other men i speak to in general are under some false assumption that women are keenly interested in landing a man and trying to have kids before 35 because of their "biological clock". The minute you mention that 1.) Many, MANY women have healthy children after that age and 2.) That they having children past that age may also have some health effects they balk at the idea. It's quite frankly annoying and yet another way they feel they've subconsciously got some power in this issue. For me, it doesn't matter a whole lot because I don't care to necessarily give birth in my life (adoption has always seemed a more attractive option for me). But I'm just saying this mindset is more common than some may think. And it's not an empowering mindset societally for women. So the issue Carol raises about the double-standards on gender and age are pertinent. Furthermore it just continues to position in some men's minds that they've got all the time in the world and that they can start having kids whenever the hell they please with no effects while women need to scramble to have kids before a certain age *rolls eyes*. So honestly I don't mind hearing facts like this to correct them when need be. With that said, I also see BR's and another poster's point on the fact that there is no master plan that we can follow to schedule in our plans for life and that men don't always intentionally choose to have kids late and that it's something that just happens. You're both absolutely right as well. The main issue here is to not judge other's decisions and to live and let live. But I have an issue with the mindset which i've mentioned aboved and which i've encountered a bit of before.
-
FACT: Disorders Linked to Advancing Paternal Age Begin to Increase Rapidly age 33 to 35
I don't think men, if they were aware of the enormity of the influence their age has on the health prospects for their children would insist on the freedom to wait to become fathers.
They don't know the research. The subject has never even occurred in their minds.
Here is part of a report presented to the American Society for Human Genetics in 2002:
"It makes sense that the mutations causing these diseases would occur more frequently in older men, and indeed that's what we saw for Apert syndrome," says Ethylin Jabs, M.D., director of the Center for Craniofacial Development and Disorders at Johns Hopkins.
Importantly, disorders linked to advancing paternal age begin to increase rapidly at about the same time as maternal risks increase -- age 33 to 35. Until now, the only evidence for paternal age effects has come from determining how many children with these diseases are born to fathers of various ages.
To obtain the first genetic explanation for these effects, the scientists studied sperm from about 60 men of various ages and looked for two genetic changes responsible for 99 percent of the cases of Apert syndrome. They found that men over 50 were, on average, three times as likely as men under 30 to have sperm with at least one of these changes. The mutations were not more common in blood samples as men aged.
The scientists say it's likely that the number of cell divisions that go into making a sperm plays a large role in the link between Apert syndrome and paternal age, and represents a fundamental difference between how aging egg and sperm can impact the health of a child.
"In the men we studied, these mutations had not been inherited, but rather collected over time in the reservoir of primitive cells that become sperm," says first author Rivka Glaser, a graduate student in human genetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
"Disease-Causing Genetic Mutations Increase with Men's Age" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/10/021018080014.htm
The autism epidemic is not unexpected nor is it mysterious.
Will people begin to discuss this issue openly?