Study Says There May Be a Relationship Between the Mother's Age at First Birth and the Genetic Factors Associated With Risk for Schizophrenia

These days, a lot of women choose to get pregnant later before thinking that it would be the best choice. However, in a recent study, it was found that children of older parents are in a slight disadvantage including in the mental health department.

The study said that an older father is more likely to produce a child with a great chance of developing schizophrenia. A recent study talked about psychosis, which is the common symptom of schizophrenia, and how it is related to a mother's, not just father's age. Another team of experts decided to further investigate on the issue.

Medical Daily reported that their results showed a surprising impact of DNA which indicated that women genetically predisposed to schizophrenia are most likely to have their first child at an early age or a later age. In the new study, Dr. S. Hong Lee of Australia's University of New England and his colleagues explained that the new study proposed a U-shaped relationship between risk of schizophrenia and the mother's age during first birth.

The study found that on average, women who gave birth either under 20 years old or older than 35 years old had a higher genetic risk for passing schizophrenia on to their children than those women who gave birth at an intermediate age.

According to Eurekalert, the study involved examining data from a genome study about two groups of participants: 18,957 people with schizophrenia and 22,673 people without. They started comparing the genetics make up of each group which resulted to them figuring out which alleles were linked to schizophrenia. The researchers then looked at a separate set of data involving 12,247 genotyped women and evaluated them based on their alleles. This created a genetic schizophrenia risk for each woman in the study. Finally, they compared the women's age at first birth with their schizophrenia risk score.

"We conclude that women with high genetic predisposition to schizophrenia tend to have their first child at an early age or a later age compared with women in the general population," concluded the authors. They suggest many of these women may have a family history of schizophrenia and so develop poor social interactions, increasing the time needed to find a mate. Or, they say, it's possible the schizophrenia risk predisposes them to impulsive behavior, which in women is associated with becoming pregnant for the first time at a younger age.