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Fertility and its Effects on Health

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Natural Human Fertility

Part of the book series: Studies in Biology, Economy and Society ((SBES))

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Abstract

Fertility plays a key aetiological role in a number of diseases. Table 11.1, the data for which is taken from Beral’s (1985) recent comparison of mortality rates at ages 45-74 in parous compared with nulliparous women in England and Wales during the period 1959-60, shows that their mortality differs well beyond the childbearing period. Overall, at this period parous women had a 20 per cent increased mortality rate. This overall increase results in large part (see Table 11.1) from four diseases: cancer of the cervix, coronary heart disease, hypertension and cerebrovascular disease. The three important diseases found consistently to be reduced (Table 11.1) in parous women are cancers of the breast, endometrium and ovary. Beral (1985) pointed out that oral contraceptives (OCs) have been consistently linked to six of these seven diseases. In each case, the risk associated with OC use mimics the risk in parous women. Only for breast cancer does the present evidence appear to show very little relationship between OC use and risk, and this is the disease which shows the least difference between parous and nulliparous women.

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Authors
  1. Malcolm C. Pike
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. New Victoria Hospital, Kingston, UK

    Peter Diggory (Consultant Gynaecologist) (Consultant Gynaecologist)

  2. Family Health International, UK

    Malcolm Potts (President) (President)

  3. Medical Epidemiologist, UK

    Sue Teper

Copyright information

© 1988 The Eugenics Society

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Pike, M.C. (1988). Fertility and its Effects on Health. In: Diggory, P., Potts, M., Teper, S. (eds) Natural Human Fertility. Studies in Biology, Economy and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09961-0_12

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