PRE-ECLAMPSIA, a complication in pregnancy in which the mother’s blood pressure becomes dangerously high, is usually associated with risk factors in the mother such as being older or obese. But older fathers increase the risk of pre-eclampsia too.
Susan Harlap of the New York University School of Medicine and her colleagues investigated 81,213 births recorded between 1964 and 1976 in Jerusalem. While half the cases of pre-eclampsia were probably related to the mother’s age, the researchers calculated that nearly 12 per cent of the cases were caused by the father being older than 35, even after accounting for the mother’s…
