Having lots of children a health benefit

From LifeSite:

Australian researchers have corroborated research showing that women who have many babies develop significant protection against developing not only breast cancer, but also other cancers including colorectal, ovarian and uterine cancers later in life.

“The more children you have, the more protective it gets,” said medical statistician Steven Darlington, a member of a group at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QIMR) who conducted the research, according to a news.com.au report. “It seems that an increase in the hormones produced during pregnancy are protecting against cancer, but we're not quite sure exactly how or why that happens.”

After studying cancer rates and correlating that with the number of children borne in 1.2 million Swedish women, Darlington and colleagues found a significant correlation with number of children and cancer incidence, noting that multiple children was especially protective against colorectal cancer. Sweden’s birth and cancer registries are more detailed and comprehensive than Australia’s, he explained.

My wife, who has had four kids, is 5'3" and about 110 pounds and is a source of jealousy for so many women who covet her youthful looks. At the same time, we get this head shaking nonsense about how unhealthy it is for women to have a lot of kids (like four is a lot). This, of course is almost always from overweight women who've had maybe one child if any at all. We also have a friend of the family, Crista, who's had eight children, and looks ten year younger than she really is. Oh, and then their's our friend Denise, who also looks at least ten years younger than she really is — she has eleven kids.

Posted by Danny Carlton at May 31, 2005 08:55 AM