They have jobs and computers and lives.

So this new study came as a surprise when I saw the press release in my inbox: Apparently, women who have their first child before age 20 are at a higher risk of chronic diseases and death when they reach middle age, a new study shows.

The study in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior says that women who are single when they have their first child are 1.42 times more likely to die early. They also have higher rates of heart disease and cancer.

The results are probably as a result not being married and the drop in income associated with being a single mother.

“Being unmarried at the time of first birth is associated with lower midlife income and a lower probability of being married in midlife,” said study author Dr. John Herettna. “It’s not so much the characteristic of being unmarried at first birth that’s important; it’s what being unmarried at first birth tells us about the midlife status of these women.”

Henretta used information from the Health and Retirement Study that included interviews with 4,335 American-born women between the ages of 51 to 61 who were followed for ten years. They were asked about their health, their level of education, their marital status, their incomes and wealth, how many children they had and the ages of their children.

I am not sure that these findings can be applied to the teen mothers I grew up with or teenage girls who may find themselves parenting today. The women in the study, all of whom were born between 1931 and 1941, may have been forced to give their children up for adoption, may have parented under severe social stigma and probably had no opportunities to further their education.

Education and opportunities to earn help to protect all women’s health. If you need to learn more about how to obtain this help, see the comments on this post at Solomother.

Post from: Babylune

When I was in grade 10, three girls in our grade (it was a big school) got pregnant and kept their babies. Some lived at home with their parents until they were 16 before moving out, others left home immediately, some stayed with their parents for much longer. All three of them stayed in school while heavily pregnant and returned once the babies were born. There were many people who said that letting these girl-women stay in school encouraged immorality, but I don’t think any of us envied those girls. They did not make pregnancy look desireable in the slightest.
Instead, adults of my parents’ generation condemned them for making teen parenthood a career choice, relying on mother’s allowance (a form of welfare) instead of focussing on their educations that would enable them to forge great careers.

A few years later I met other single mothers who had been teen mothers and were every bit as ambition and driven as I was. According to an article in the Scotsman, the teenage mothers of my tenth grade class were just following a biological imperative:

• Dr Laurence Shaw, deputy medical director of the Bridge Centre fertility clinic in London, said females had been programmed by two million years of evolution to have babies in their late teens and early twenties, when fertility is at its peak.
• Speaking at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Eshre), he said nature intended women to become mothers when young, and for their fertility to decline while they raised their children.

Ambition and opportunity though, don’t decline like fertility. Now that I am 34 with a baby, I have just realised that, biologically speaking, I am old enought to be a grandmother. I wouldn’t even be surprised if at least one of those three teen mothers I went to school with is a grandmother.

What I am curious about though, is how they are doing career-wise. Just because I waited to have children, just because I invested so much time, money and energy into my education and career development doesn’t mean I have anything to rely on for financial stability now or later. That, since I just finished paying off my student loans in March, was a harder epiphany to have than the whole biological grandmotherhood age realisation.

Am I saying I have regrets? Not, exactly. I do think though, that I am more open-minded about what is a good or a right thing to do for each individual. And just because our lives might not turn out the way we planned, doesn’t mean that life can’t be good.

What do you think? Do you wish you had become a parent earlier or later in life?

Post from: Babylune