A person thinks that he is the master of his life, and he himselfdetermines whether to be his parent or not, give birth at 20 or 30 years. But sometimes plans crash in an amazing way. For example, someone struggles to decide on a second baby, and on ultrasound it turns out that the stomach has a triplet. Others from a youth dream of a large family, but only by the age of 40 they have an only child, despite good health. What is this - evil rock? Scientists believe that the whole fault is genetics.
Photo:GettyImagesResearchers at Oxford University studied 62 databases with information on the age at which 238,000 men and women had their first child. They also analyzed the total number of children for 330,000. Having “looked” into their genes, the specialists made some interesting conclusions. In the blood of the subjects, they found 12 so-called regions in the DNA sequence that are directly related to when and at what age a person is likely to have offspring. Surprisingly, human reproductive behavior is partly programmed, with as many as 24 genes responsible for this! “We found that women whose DNA contains information about their predisposition to late motherhood start their periods later and experience menopause later,” said Professor Melinda Mills from Oxford University. “It’s the same among men: in “late” fathers, their voices break later. However, this discovery does not mean that a person’s fate is entirely in the hands of nature. After all, genes do not determine our behavior. And such an important event as the birth of a child depends greatly on our own desires, and on social and environmental factors. What is the benefit of the study? Scientists believe that it will help people find out the limit of their childbearing age. So that those who are delaying motherhood and fatherhood can "jump on the last train."
