Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer lifeLive your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletterLive your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletterFrasier star Kelsey Grammer has announced that he is expecting his eighth child at age 70 — an age considered by doctors to be far past “advanced paternal age.”This will be the Cheers actor’s fourth child with his wife, 46-year-old film producer Kayte Walsh. The pair share Faith, 12, Gabriel, 10, and James, eight. “It was like three days ago,” Grammer told the Pod Meets World podcast earlier this week. “Christopher, that’s just joined the family.”Grammer is certainly not the oldest expectant father, nor the oldest father in Hollywood. Actors Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, of The Godfather fame, fathered children at 79 and 83, respectively. But, fathers above the age of only 35 years old are more likely to have children with adverse birth outcomes, according to researchers at Stanford Medicine, and researchers at Rutgers University say those over the age of 45 have a higher risk of pregnancy complications, premature and late still birth, newborn seizures and birth defects. open image in galleryKelsey Grammer and his wife Kayte Walsh have had their fourth child together. Grammer is 70 years old. Doctors warn fathers over the age 35 have children at an increased risk of developing birth defects and other adverse outcomes (Getty Images)The older a father’s age, the greater the risk for these and other conditions.“For example, men who were 45 or older were 14 percent more likely to have a child born prematurely, and men 50 or older were 28 percent more likely to have a child that required admission to the neonatal intensive care unit,” the researchers said, citing a previous study of more than 40 million births.A father’s age can even affect the health of their partner, leaving mothers at a disproportionate risk of developing diabetes and the life-threatening complication preeclampsia.”We tend to look at maternal factors in evaluating associated birth risks, but this study shows that having a healthy baby is a team sport, and the father’s age contributes to the baby’s health, too,” said Dr. Michael Eisenberg, an associate professor of urology, said in 2018.Infants fathered by men of advanced paternal age are also at a heightened risk of childhood cancer, autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. However, these diseases are caused by combinations of genetic and non-genetic factors, according to doctors at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Experts have tied these outcomes to declining testosterone rates – the male sex hormone – and naturally degraded sperm and semen quality. “In addition to advancing paternal age being associated with an increased risk of male infertility, there appears to be other adverse changes that may occur to the sperm with aging,” Gloria Bachmann, director of the Women’s Health Institute at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, explained. open image in galleryActors Robert De Niro and Al Pacino both had children past the age of 70 (Getty Images for AFI)“For example, just as people lose muscle strength, flexibility and endurance with age, in men, sperm also tend to lose ‘fitness’ over the life cycle.”Still, being a father of advanced years doesn’t mean a baby will automatically develop any of these conditions.Eisenberg compared the risk to buying lottery tickets.”If you buy two lottery tickets instead of one, your chances of winning double, so it’s increased by 100 percent,” he said. “But that’s a relative increase. Because your chance of winning the lottery started very small, it’s still unlikely that you’re going to win the lottery.”The age at which many men are becoming fathers in the U.S. is increasing. It rose by 3.5 years between 1972 and 2015 and the number of infants born to fathers over the age of 45 has risen 10 percent over the past 40 years.
Source link
Kelsey Grammar just had his eighth kid at 70. Doctors say aging dads can put a baby’s health at risk
