What age is optimal for pregnancy? (study)(journals.sagepub.com)
journals.sagepub.com
What age is optimal for pregnancy? (study)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14747049211039506
35 comments
One of the major flaws of this study from what I can tell is that it is quite literally prone to survivorship bias. By strictly looking at successful first births it's ignoring the flip side which is how many births were aborted for medically necessary reasons and/or how many miscarriages took place.
To me, this seems like they had a given outcome they wanted to prove and then worked backwards from there.
To me, this seems like they had a given outcome they wanted to prove and then worked backwards from there.
> By strictly looking at successful first births it's ignoring the flip side which is how many births were aborted for medically necessary reasons and/or how many miscarriages took place.
I think you should give it another read.
> Moreover, unlike most previous studies, we (a) assess a large set of maternal, fetal, and infant outcomes and complications of labor and delivery, including CPD; (b) consider only medically necessary C-sections; (c) use age groups structured to reflect the average ages of first births in forager populations, comparing the age of 16–20 years with older and younger mothers; (d) include fetal deaths as well as infant deaths;…
I think you should give it another read.
> Moreover, unlike most previous studies, we (a) assess a large set of maternal, fetal, and infant outcomes and complications of labor and delivery, including CPD; (b) consider only medically necessary C-sections; (c) use age groups structured to reflect the average ages of first births in forager populations, comparing the age of 16–20 years with older and younger mothers; (d) include fetal deaths as well as infant deaths;…
Anyone else find this an incredibly difficult article to make any sense of? I've read a lot of epidemiological research and I haven't really come across "primiparas" before, why not just call it "first births"? That's what the population genetics papers do. The only technical term in here that I am familiar with is "menarche" (first period/menstrual cycle). The rest just feels like obfuscation to make the authors seem smarter.
The massive Odds Ratios presented further down are suspicious as well - if I saw those kind of effect sizes based on observational data I would be running a lot of sanity checks and models designed to test the stability of my model outputs etc.
I don't think this will be the study to convince me that Evolutionary Psychology is anything more than snake oil.
The massive Odds Ratios presented further down are suspicious as well - if I saw those kind of effect sizes based on observational data I would be running a lot of sanity checks and models designed to test the stability of my model outputs etc.
I don't think this will be the study to convince me that Evolutionary Psychology is anything more than snake oil.
Because primiparas describes the women that give first births and not the first births themselves. The abstract uses regular English and introduces the term. Otherwise they would have to write "women with first births" all the time.
It feels like they just tried to be concise and not just throwing them in there to sound smarter.
It feels like they just tried to be concise and not just throwing them in there to sound smarter.
I found this relatively well written, though I am no peer reviewer (I suspect most of you aren't either)
Would those who are flagging or down voting it please give a sentence or two for their reasons? Do you not like the methodology, the conclusion, or the article's presence on a 'tech' site?
Would those who are flagging or down voting it please give a sentence or two for their reasons? Do you not like the methodology, the conclusion, or the article's presence on a 'tech' site?
Since you've had no answer yet: I didn't flag or downvote this submission, but I don't think it's relevant to HN. It's also a subject fraught with controversy and easily spirals into a flame war, so I'm suspicious of the motive for posting it.
Hey, I posted it, I thought it was interesting because I always assumed a little older is better. I didn't mean to start a whole fight. Sorry...
This feels like it was run through some form of a language obscuration process.
How to make this more difficult read.
If we are going to talk about evolution then why not ask ourselves why women keep ovulating till the age of 55?
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> This suggests that prior to the widespread availability of surgical deliveries, men who mated with women in the nubile age group would have reaped the benefit of having a reproductive partner more likely to have a successful first pregnancy.
What exactly is a "Nubile age group"?
What exactly is a "Nubile age group"?
> A nubile woman is a nulligravida who has recently completed physical growth, puberty, and sexual development (Symons, 1979). This is usually accomplished 3–4 years after menarche in the mid to late teens when female reproductive value is maximal (Bowles & Posel, 2005; Fisher, 1930; Keyfitz & Flieger, 1971).
I'm scared to google these words. Could you translate them from Medical to English for the rest of us?
unironically, I've been downloading ISO images of the cds that used to be sold with dictionaries.
They're fairly small, they work well with wine and they work offline.
I understand that you might be afraid of triggering stuff, and in that case the good old (paper) dictionary might help you.
They're fairly small, they work well with wine and they work offline.
I understand that you might be afraid of triggering stuff, and in that case the good old (paper) dictionary might help you.
Nulligravida = not been pregnant
Menarche = first menstrual period
Menarche = first menstrual period
This mf scared of words
More likely scared to trigger pedophilia warnings from people who monitor his web traffic
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From the abstract:
> Using data for 1.7 million first births from 1990 U.S. natality and mortality records, we compared outcomes for women with first births (primiparas) aged 16–20 years (when first births typically occur in forager and subsistence groups) with those aged 21–25 years. The younger primiparas had a much lower risk of potentially life-threatening complications of labor and delivery
So a reasonable assumption is that they mean 16-20 years.
> Using data for 1.7 million first births from 1990 U.S. natality and mortality records, we compared outcomes for women with first births (primiparas) aged 16–20 years (when first births typically occur in forager and subsistence groups) with those aged 21–25 years. The younger primiparas had a much lower risk of potentially life-threatening complications of labor and delivery
So a reasonable assumption is that they mean 16-20 years.
I think the general consensus has always been that teenage girls can't really raise children and aren't in a position to do so, but that they would probably have healthier children than women even 10 years older (though, it appears the difference is only meaningful once a woman hits her late 30s or so, which was also understood).
Of course, the "fantasy" of every teenager would actually be the ideal reality: to allow them to have total sexual freedom, sex as an open, public, and common thing, and have the social support to allow any pregnancies that are as a result of that be carried to term, and have the children raised collectively. But instead people want sexual frustration and long periods of loneliness that result in monogamy in their mid to late 20s--and why? So Mark Zuckerberg can buy a new yacht, or whatever it is he spends all his money on.
Of course, the "fantasy" of every teenager would actually be the ideal reality: to allow them to have total sexual freedom, sex as an open, public, and common thing, and have the social support to allow any pregnancies that are as a result of that be carried to term, and have the children raised collectively. But instead people want sexual frustration and long periods of loneliness that result in monogamy in their mid to late 20s--and why? So Mark Zuckerberg can buy a new yacht, or whatever it is he spends all his money on.
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einpoklum(4)
Physically, or economically?
"when social and behavioral risk factors were controlled"
So physically and ignoring tons of other factors relevant in the real world.
So physically and ignoring tons of other factors relevant in the real world.
This study assume we are animalistic like rabbit, dogs and cats with raging hormone to breed madly. Everything else that makes as human are excluded.
This shouldn't be remotely controversial controversial. When my partner expressed that children were in her life plan, even 22 year-old me had the sense to say "well shit girl we better get going! neither of us wants to be tired for childrearing!"