Child rearing or childbearing? Risk of cardiovascular diseases associated to parity and number of children.

An increase in the risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has been associated with women’s parity, but it is still unclear whether this association reflects a direct effect of pregnancy, or exposure to factors related to childrearing. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying this association, this paper assesses the risk of CVD associated with the number of children among both genders and tests effect modification of the association by socioeconomic position and employment status. Using Italian National Health Surveys conducted in 2000 and 2005 with record-linkage to archives of mortality and hospital admissions until 2014, Cox regression results show that CVD incidence is increased among men and women ever parents and with higher number of children, controlling for socio-demographics covariates, biological CVD risk factors, perceived health, lifestyles, and other potential confounders. In both genders, subjects with lower socioeconomic position displayed significantly stronger associations; in contrast, no difference by employment status was observed among women. Taken together, results suggest that childrearing has a potential effect on CVD development, more marked among disadvantaged families.

D'ERRICO Angelo;  FONTANA Dario;  SACERDOTE Carlotta;  ARDITO Chiara; 

2025-03-20

BMC

JRC134104

1471-2458 (online),   

https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-17119-z#citeas,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134104,   

10.1186/s12889-023-17119-z (online),