It’s widely known that our fertility declines with age, especially after the age of 35.
Well, new research could find some positives with having a child later in life.
New research has shown that having a baby after the age of 35 could have a positive effect on our brains.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that women who had children after the age of 35 had a higher quality of memory retention later in life.
830 post-menopausal women were tested in the areas of verbal memory, executive functioning skills, and global cognition.
Taking factors such as the age of their first period, age at the time of pregnancy, and number of pregnancies, the study found that women whose last pregnancy was after the age of 35 had much higher verbal memory.
The study also revealed that women who gave birth between the ages of 15 and 24 had a lower quality of health and cognitive functioning by the time they turned 40.
It is said that the increase in hormone levels during pregnancy causes huge positive changes to our brain’s functioning and therefore, having a baby later in life prolongs those positive effects.
"While it is not enough to suggest that women wait until after 35 years of age to close their family growth, our finding of a positive effect of later age at last pregnancy on late-life cognition is novel and substantial," said the lead author of the study, Dr. Roksana Karim.
