AUTHOR=Gu Ying-wen , Zhang Shuo , Wang Jia-hao , Yang Hua-lei , Zhang Si-qing , Yao Yi-dan , Wu Yuan-yang , Xie Lin , Li Zhi-yun , Cao Jin-yan 

TITLE=Number of Births and Risk of Diabetes in China's Older Women

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2022.798787

DOI=10.3389/fmed.2022.798787

ISSN=2296-858X

ABSTRACT=As an important life event in individuals' life, childbirth will affect the health of women in different degrees. More and more attention has been paid to whether the number of births will affect the incident diabetes in elderly women , but there are few related studies. Based on the data of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey in 2018, 6159 older women are selected as study population. Logistic regression analyses is used to estimate the relationship between number of births and diabetes risk. For each additional birth, the odds ratio of maternal diabetes will decrease by 6.9% and the result is significant at 1% level, especially among mothers with having four children or less. The conclusion is equally applicable in the sample of fathers and urban mothers, but the increase in the number of births will increase the risk of diabetes in rural mothers, although this result is not statistically significant. Later age at first birth and at last birth, the longer childbearing period and birth interval will significantly reduce the risk of diabetes.