PARENTAL AGE EFFECTS ON MAN 



Eeva Jalavisto 



Institute of Physiology, Helsinki 



The life expectancy of offspring in relation to parental age 

 has received very little attention. This is easily understood 

 because of the difficulties in the collection of material suitable 

 for such a study. In official vital statistics the dates of birth 

 of the parents are not recorded, and the only feasible method 

 is to compile data from family records. Holmes and Wilson 

 (1925) and Holmes (1928) have collected material from 

 European royal lineage, but although it extends over about 

 eight or nine centuries the data are nevertheless rather scanty. 

 Holmes and Wilson showed that the life expectancy at 20 

 years is not dependent upon maternal age if families of the 

 same size only are compared. However, on the whole the 

 older brothers tend to live longer than their younger brothers. 

 The same relationship was shown by Beeton and Pearson 

 (1901). Ansell (1874), Yerushalmy (1938, 1939), Gardiner and 

 Yerushalmy (1939), Burns (1942), Tabah and Sutter (1948) 

 and Hoogendoorn (1953), amongst many others, clearly 

 demonstrated that the age of the mother influences the rate 

 of stillbirths and early postnatal mortahty. With increasing 

 age of the mother the death rate of children under one year of 

 age increases steadily even in children of the same birth order 

 (Yerushalmy, 1938, 1945), but the question of the postnatal 

 mortality is controversial, the opposite relationship also being 

 found (Heady et a/., 1955; Knox and Mackintosh, 1958). For 

 references MacMahon and Gordon (1953) may be consulted. 



Material and Methods 



The material to be presented was collected from Swedish 

 and Finnish published family records (Jalavisto, 1950, 1951). 



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