In a paper published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, a team of Swedish researchers report that having kids is associated with an increase in life expectancy, especially as we age. According to the new work, 60-year-old women with children had a remaining life expectancy of 24.6 years, compared with 23.1 years for those who do not have children. For men, the difference was even greater.
Sixty-year-old men with children were expected to live for another 20.2 years on average, whereas those without children were expected to live for an additional 18.4 years. That’s nearly a two-year difference.
To come to these conclusions, the researchers used national registry data to track the life spans of more than 1.4 million Swedish men and women who were born between 1911 and 1925.
The results of this work are purely observational and cannot be used to draw any conclusions about why they see the effects reported in the study, the authors said. They also said it is possible that adult children may offer various types of help to their aging parents. For example, physical, social, and emotional support all might increase a person’s life span.or men, the difference was even greater.
Sixty-year-old men with children were expected to live for another 20.2 years on average, whereas those without children were expected to live for an additional 18.4 years. That’s nearly a two-year difference.
But what does this have to do with fertility, infertility and IVF. If you do want to conceive and cannot, even with conventional treatment like ovulation induction and IUI, the increase in life expectancy might seal the deal to proceed with IVF.
When considering any medical procedure most people are mainly concerned with the side effects, but not the positive additional effects that a procedure or treatment might provide such as in this case not only a child, but also a greater life expectancy.