Older Fathers - Stupid Kids?

Oh dear, I recently read that there are all sorts of increased health risks for children of older fathers. The title may be overplaying it but there is definitely enough material here to make me look more closely at my child.

The article I read in Psychology Today written by Paul Raeburn, who has written extensively on the effects of older fathers on their children, asserts that there are lots of areas to be concerned about.

Allegedly research shows that in a child of a father over 40 there is a sixfold increase in the chance of autism while that increases to ninefold for fathers over 50.

This 'Advanced Paternal Age' has links to all sorts of birth defects such as cleft lip and palate, water on the brain, dwarfism and miscarriage. Now we can add another to the list which includes higher instance in prostrate cancer in boys of older fathers, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. That's 'Decreased Intellectual Capacity'.

I am worried enough as it is when it comes to my own intelligence but to think that my older fathering has diminished my poor boy's chances of a decent IQ is actually quite hard to take. The only light at the end of the tunnel is that the child can 'catch up' later and fulfil its intellectual potential.

Presumably that catch up is as a result of the decreased period that the child is under the father's parentage as people as old as me will die earlier than younger parents. At last, an advantage of being older on top of an earlier inheritance.

In all seriousness, this is a concern. Particularly in the context of our search for a suitable first school for the might, it has now biased my thinking to giving our boy the best education we can afford.

Bang goes the concept of Early Retirement. Any retirement is looking a decreasingly likely option.


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