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Genetics and ageing in man

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2011

D. F. Roberts
D. F. Roberts
Affiliation:
Department of Human Genetics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

Among the conflicts of modern life is that faced by many educated women between the desire to pursue a professional career and the demands of their potential maternal role. Some resolve this by deferring having children. This deferment, coupled with an increased awareness of birth defects generally and of the problems faced by older mothers, leads to an increasing number of queries to genetic advisory services, family doctors, obstetricians, and family planning centres, as to the specific risks in reproduction by older parents. The appreciable risk of death in childbed of earlier days is no longer with us, thanks to modern obstetric techniques. But the child morbidity due to congenital and genetic disorders, already appreciable (Roberts, Chavez & Court, 1970; Roberts, 1975) and increasing both proportionately and absolutely, and the evidence that some of these increase in incidence with age, mean that there is a real basis for the enquirers' concern. The following review of the ways in which parental ageing affects the incidence of such disorders, and of the mechanisms that appear to be responsible, places the increased risks in perspective.

Type
IV. Social aspects of late fertility
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 11 , supplement S6: Fertility in Middle Age , 1979 , pp. 177 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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