Here we go again with the sensationalizing of wonky data, although the researcher in this case may be as culpable as the reporter. Apparently, a study is asserting that woman “who got pregnant naturally and successfully birthed their last child after age 33 were twice as likely to live to age 95 compared to those who had their last child by age 29.”
The reason? Well, “according to Dr. Thomas Perls, a co-author of the study, a professor of medicine at Boston Medical Center and the Director of the New England Centenarian Study “The natural ability to have a child at an older age likely indicates that a woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly, and therefore so is the rest of her body,” Perls said in a public statement.”
Oh for Pete’s sake.
There is a well known correlation between delayed childbirth and maternal education and socioeconomic status. The more educated and wealthy you are, the later you typically give birth. Thanks to income disparity and differential treatment in our healthcare system, statistically the less money you have the earlier you die.
Thus, relatively wealth (middle-class and up) women delay birth. The older moms live longer because they aren’t poor, so it looks like women who delay birth live longer.
You do not have a magically slow-aging body if your have a baby later in life. What you have is birth control to put off having children until you are economically more secure, a career that needs your attention in your 20s, and enough money to afford healthy food and health insurance. Socioeconomic advantages are not the same a slower ageing.
Causation and Correlation are different words for a reason.