Does the age of the father make any difference on the health of the child?

I know the older a woman gets, the greater her chances of having a child with Down's syndrome.





Are there risks like that with older fathers?|||There are loads of adverse health risks that the offspring of older father bear.


Non-verbal IQ decreases in the children of older fathers, girls do worse at earlier paternal ages. Their life expectancy goes down. Risk of sporadic autism, mental retardation, schizophrenia, cancers, diabetes 1, MS, some cerebral palsies, epilepsy, heart defects, Alzheimer's all rise in offspring as the father's age rises.


There is a great variety in where men start out genetically depending on past generations. Some offspring of very old fathers might live long and healthy lives, but no one has studied this question. They have found that daughters of men 45 and over live 6 years less than daughters of father who are younger. Gavrilovas





Dr. Dolores Malaspina wrote in 2006:


"We propose that de novo genetic alterations in the paternal germ line cause an independent and common variant of schizophrenia.





http://www.schizophreniaforum.org/for/cu鈥?/a>





Seminal findings


We initially examined the relationship between paternal age and the risk for schizophrenia because it is well established that paternal age is the major source of de novo mutations in the human population, and most schizophrenia cases have no family history of psychosis. In 2001, we demonstrated a monotonic increase in the risk of schizophrenia as paternal age advanced ...





Schizophrenia probably would become rare if men fathered all their babies by 30 and/or froze and stored semen in client depositor bank accounts for later fathering. Cryopreservation of semen has proven safe even after 21 years.|||If so, I never heard of any risks.|||no i dont think so . i wasnt warned of any risks and my husband is 14 years older than i am. however they say that the later in life that you have kids, the brainier the child|||no.|||If both parents are over the age 40 the chances are very good for having a downs child and an autistic child. If the women is over 40 Downs is likely.If the father is the older one and the wife is still under 40 the risk is not elevated.|||Yes, as men get older adverse risks increase. One increased risk is the chance for Autism. There is also risk for DNA damage in the sperm. Pleny of info, just search the net "older men fathering children"|||No. I believe that Larry King has a 6 year old. Also, Anthony Quinn fathered a child when he was in his 80's.





So mature men who want to have children should go for it. The only drawback is that a loving father would want to make sure that he will be around to see his child make it to adulthood.





Best wishes!|||Not that I know of.


but the quality of parental involvement in growing up YES! what 10 year old wants their 70YO dad to show up at open house (look Johny's grandpa is here)|||yes, older men tend to have mentally-disabled children as per a study|||Apparently not. There are plenty of geriatric fathers out there with healthy kids. Plus, men continue to produce sperm all their lives, unlike women who stop ovulating in their 50's.|||My first child was born one month before I turned 56. My second 4 months before I turned 59. Both kids are now 8 and 11 and are healthy and intelligent. My wife is 17 years younger than I. That means she was 39 at the time of the first birth and 42 at the time of the second birth.|||Yes,It increases the risks but,that doesn't mean to say that it always does.If there are any concerns,a sperm check should be performed.