The first part of a two-year study by researchers at the Institute of Child Health, part of University College London, used data from the Millennium Cohort Study and the National Evaluation of Sure Start to compare the health of children born to women over 40 with that of children born to younger mothers.
Previous studies have found an increased risk to older mothers and their children of health problems such as premature birth, growth problems for the child in the womb and genetic conditions such as Down Syndrome.
The research looked at households within the bottom 20 per cent of socio-economic areas and studied 510 children born to mothers aged 40 years or over at nine months, and 463 children at three years, and compared the findings with 25,000 other children. The study used four measures to analyse child health: whether the child had had an accident within the past year, if the child had been admitted to hospital, whether the child had been immunised and his or her Body Mass Index (BMI).
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