A groundbreaking study published in Nature Human Behaviour has unveiled a link between early-life diseases and childlessness.
Conducted by an international team led by Aoxing Liu and colleagues, the research analyzed over 2.5 million individuals from Finland and Sweden, born between 1956 and 1973. This study is pivotal in understanding how certain diseases affect the chances of having children.
In Western European and East Asian countries, up to 20% of people born around 1970 are childless.
While social, economic, and personal factors have been extensively studied, the impact of diseases, especially those occurring before reproductive age, has not been fully explored.
Dr. Aoxing Liu, the lead author and a researcher at the University of Helsinki, emphasized the importance of understanding these factors to mitigate the risk of involuntary childlessness.
The team used nationwide registers to study the medical histories of 1.4 million women and 1.1 million men. They paid particular attention to 414 early-life diseases and their effects on whether these individuals had children.
The study focused on siblings with different childbearing experiences, examining 71,524 sister and 77,622 brother pairs.
Surprisingly, mental-behavioral disorders were the most common diseases associated with childlessness. Additionally, the study uncovered new associations with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Interestingly, the study revealed that people who had only one child had similar disease associations as those who were childless, compared to those with more children.
Gender played a significant role in these findings. Men were more likely to be childless (25%) than women (16.6%).
Diseases like schizophrenia and alcohol intoxication were more strongly linked to childlessness in men, while diabetes and congenital anomalies were more associated with childlessness in women.
The timing of disease onset also differed between genders, with early diagnoses having a stronger impact on women and later diagnoses affecting men more.
Professor Melinda Mills, one of the senior authors, pointed out the importance of interdisciplinary research in understanding the socioeconomic factors and health conditions contributing to childlessness.
The study also highlighted that not having a partner significantly influenced the likelihood of being childless, a factor more prevalent in childless individuals.
Associate Professor Andrea Ganna concluded that this study sheds light on how early-life diseases influence childlessness, affecting both single and partnered individuals. It emphasizes the need for public health interventions to address these issues.
While the study offers significant insights, it also acknowledges the need for further research.
This includes distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary childlessness and extending the findings beyond Nordic to more recent cohorts with evolving medical treatments and social norms around reproduction and partnering.
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The research findings can be found in Nature Human Behaviour.
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