I confess–before I found out I was having a son, I __desperately wanted a girl. T__o my surprise, that desire had pretty much vanished entirely by the time we left our gender ultrasound and headed out to buy our son his first pair of baby blue booties. But now, a recently published study out of Finland has me once again hoping for that little girl, because aparently, I'll live longer if I have a girl!
Dr. Samuli Helle, an evolutionary ecologist from Finland's University of Turku along with Dr. Virpi Lummaa of the United Kingdom's University of Sheffield has discovered that in a study of mothers and fathers from pre-industrial Finland, mothers–not fathers–of boys lived an average of eight and half months shorter than mothers of girls.
The study spanned three centuries, during which most people did not have access to modern medical care, but the results showed no correlation with financial or social status. However, it was evident that the more sons a woman birthed the greater the decrease in life expectancy would be. Though the reasons for the disparity are inconclusive, there are several theories, including that girls were more likely to help their mothers with household responsibilities later in life and that boys are more taxing on their mothers in utero due to greater nutrient demand. No wonder I was so hungry all the time while I was pregnant! Was it a sign of things to come? It's possible, but not certain.
Helle notes that thanks to smaller family sizes, better nutrition and medical advancements among other things, the risk to moms of boys may not be the same today as it was in the past. Still, I can't unlearn what I've learned from his study. Hopefully, by the time we start planning for baby number 2, I'll have forgotten all about it!
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