Having babies may up your risk for needing joint replacements later on
November 4, 2008 by Marijke Durning, RN
Filed under Women's Health
What do having babies and hip replacements have in common? Well, it seems that the more babies a woman has, the higher her risk gets for having to have a joint replacement later in life. (Maybe someone should warn Michelle Duggar?? And the Duggars’ 18th baby is a….)
In a study of over 1 million women done in the United Kingdom, women who had children were compared with women who never had children. The results showed that with each child, a woman’s risk of needing a hip replacement later on rose by 2% and a knee replacement by 8%.
There also seemed to be a bit of a connection between age of first menstruation and joint replacements. If a woman began menstruating before the age of 11 years, she had a 9% higher risk of needing a hip replacement later and a 15% higher risk of needing a knee replacement, compared with women who began their periods after the age of 11.
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Image: iStock.com
Tags: pregnancy blog, knee replacement, joint replacement, hip replacement, having babies
