Young Mothers Might be More Likely to Experience Worse Health Later in Life

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Women who started having a family at a younger age may affect their health once they reach midlife, new study suggested.

According to a report by WebMD, it is said that women who bear their first child at the age of 25 to 35 will have better health when they reach 40, compared to those who had their firstborn between 20 and 24 or during their teenage years, 15 to 19.

The results of the study were included in this month's issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Kristi Williams, study lead author and Ohio State University's associate professor of sociology, explained in the journal how it will affect a woman's health a decade after giving birth as a young adult.

"Ours is the first U.S. study to find that having your first child in young adulthood is associated with worse self-assessed health decades later for white and black women, when compared to those who wait until they are over 24."

The study was conducted through analyzing the records of more than 3,000 women in the United States. These women have been monitored for the research between the years of 1979 and 2008.

The researchers assessed their health when they reached the age of 40 and the data were reviewed by the team of researchers. All women included in the study were between 15 and 35 years old when they had their first baby.

Williams and his team have also refuted the notion that single parents will be much healthier if they eventually marry later on. Nevertheless, they stated that the health of single African-American women who have kids and later get married will get worse when they reach the age of 40 compared to those who remain single.

Williams said that most research indicated that the effort of some groups to promote marriage have been unsuccessful. Statistics proved that there had been no significant increase of marriage rates in the United States. Williams also mentioned, in relation to their new study, that these finding will be good for some African-American women's health.

Although the team of researchers has not found a solid reason why it is affecting single African-American mothers who later got married, they mentioned that it may be because of not these women having a hard time finding partners with good economic standing. The situation these women get involved in may lead to stress related diseases or sickness.

"That can lead to stress and conflict in marriage, which can result in poorer health for the women as they age," Williams added.