Pregnancy at an old age protect you from dementia?

Pregnancy is an issue of great importance for most women. Despite older women become likely to be pregnant in many developed countries, the risks around pregnancy becomes higher in older women in general.

In addition to the risk for babies, it was said that expecting mothers in older ages were likely to have troubles with pregnancy. It is empirically true. However, recently, an interesting study was published suggesting a paradoxical result.

According to this study, women who had had a child after their 35-year-old were likely to maintain better cognitive function. This study is the first one to investigated the correlation between age at last pregnancy and the mother’s cognitive function after menopause.

Independent: Women who have children later in life age better, study finds

Unfortunately, this study is a cross-sectional one. Thus, causal relationship between pregnancy in older age and good cognitive function in later life remain unknown despite the positive correlation among them. It is possible that this study suggests that only healthy and energetic women can get pregnant after 35-year-old.

On the other hand, it is interesting that use of the contraceptive pill brought better cognitive function according to this study. There seem some beneficial effects on cognition in hormonergic change during pregnancy.

Some other factors have been proven regarding the relationship between women’s health risks and the history of pregnancy. Though these facts hardly influence our decision to become pregnant, we would like to be aware of them to some extent.