Two Harvard Medical School geneticists reviewed studies that measured women's biological age using wearables, blood tests and epigenetic clocks, and found pregnancy accelerates the clock while postpartum slows it again.
Pregnancy accelerates biological aging, which is perhaps no surprise. What is surprising is that it slows back down on its own after birth — two Harvard Medical School geneticists pulled together studies using wearables, blood tests and epigenetic clocks and saw this speed-up and slow-down cycle.
From that they propose leaving time for the body to recover between pregnancies; the World Health Organization recommends 24 months. The authors stress it is a hypothesis, to be tested by following the health of women with multiple births over their lives.
What I wonder is whether the body is keeping count of the pregnancies or of the gaps between them.
Curated from high-quality sources, with concise summaries and key takeaways.
