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Speaker 1: I read on News twenty four couple of days ago,

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Speaker 1: and I've been thinking about it, the fact that the legendry,

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Speaker 1: and he really is legendary. Anton Ruelsen is becoming a

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Speaker 1: father again at the age of eighty. And this is

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Speaker 1: not something which is unique. I think that eighty plus

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Speaker 1: year old fathers. We tend to hear about them, read

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Speaker 1: about them when the fathers are prominent in some way.

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Speaker 1: So when when Robert de Niro does it, or when

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Speaker 1: al Pacino does it, we go, oh, at eighty one,

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Speaker 1: eighty two, eighty three, so and so is having a child.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how widely it is happening

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Speaker 1: in the non public world. And I was very I

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Speaker 1: wanted to be very careful not to sound judgmental, not

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Speaker 1: to say you shouldn't be doing that, but I was

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Speaker 1: interested in trying to find out whether there are any

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Speaker 1: pros to having an advanced parent a I was sent

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Speaker 1: to study by the guest I'm about to talk to,

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Speaker 1: which talked about the increase of the increase in numbers

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Speaker 1: of men in their forties and fifties having children. I

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Speaker 1: don't know whether that applies to men in their sixties

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Speaker 1: and seventies and eighties, But I was interested to know

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Speaker 1: what are the pros. If they are pros, what are

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Speaker 1: the benefits to a child born to a mother in

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Speaker 1: her late thirties early forties and a father late seventies

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Speaker 1: early eighties. What are the cons both physiological and developmental psychological.

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Speaker 1: We're joined by doctor Kate Brody, who is a pediatrician

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Speaker 1: at Life. Vincent Pilotti, Hello, Kate, Hi. One of the

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Speaker 1: studies that you sent me kind of says, most of

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Speaker 1: the impact is not so great if you're talking about

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Speaker 1: somebody in their seventies and eighties having a child.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think in general, these these studies

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Speaker 2: are really difficult to to quantify. I think it's it's

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Speaker 2: it's something that we need to look at from so

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Speaker 2: many different perspectives. And you know, a lot of these

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Speaker 2: conditions that they speak about and we can go into detail,

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Speaker 2: but a lot of the conditions that they say are

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Speaker 2: more common in the kids of older parents or older

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Speaker 2: fathers specifically, are in general being diagnosed more commonly. So

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Speaker 2: how do you quantify which is because the fathers are

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Speaker 2: getting older, and which is because we are just being

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Speaker 2: getting better at diagnosing them and managing them. But they

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Speaker 2: do speak about how there are neurodevelopmental and psychosocial implications

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Speaker 2: in terms of, you know, being born to an older father,

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Speaker 2: and they speak about an older father from being forty,

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Speaker 2: which in my case, my husband was I think forty

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Speaker 2: eight when we had our first child and fifty when

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Speaker 2: we had our second child, so we definitely fall into

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Speaker 2: this category. And I was definitely an older mom as well,

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Speaker 2: because I had my first at thirty eighth and my

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Speaker 2: second of forty one, and you know, our kids then

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Speaker 2: have those risks. But also when they speak about the

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Speaker 2: benefits the advantage of being born to mature people who

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Speaker 2: are kind of know where they're going in life and

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Speaker 2: have you know, settled down and really really wanted them

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Speaker 2: and had done everything they could to get them. But yet,

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Speaker 2: as you said, there's more of an association with these

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Speaker 2: sort of poor outcomes or poorer outcomes, and there's no

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Speaker 2: real cause and effects found. There's no if you are

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Speaker 2: this age your child will have that, or you have

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Speaker 2: this much risk of having that. It's more like there's

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Speaker 2: like a loose association with these conditions being seen more commonly,

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Speaker 2: possibly in older fathers.

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Speaker 1: Is there any link between aged sperm, middle aged sperm

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Speaker 1: and young sperm and health outcomes.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So that's the biological mechanism that you speak about.

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Speaker 2: So there'd be in terms of why this happens. They

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Speaker 2: think it's because there are more DNA mutations that accumulate

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Speaker 2: in the sperm over time. So men are continually making sperm,

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Speaker 2: and as they get older, more and more DNA mutations

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Speaker 2: will accumulate. And there's also an epigenetic change that can

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Speaker 2: affect which genes are expressed, So your lifestyle and in

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Speaker 2: general your environment can also affect your genes. And these

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Speaker 2: are what are thought to increase neurodevelopmental variability and influence

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Speaker 2: the development of the brain. So it's different to women

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Speaker 2: who are born with all their eggs and the eggs

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Speaker 2: become kind of older and you know, almost faulty. But

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Speaker 2: with men, they continue to produce theirms throughout their lives,

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Speaker 2: but they just accumulate more mutations.

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Speaker 1: You look at somebody who is born to a parent

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Speaker 1: a father of eighty and you go, at the very best,

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Speaker 1: this child is going to have twenty years with that father,

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Speaker 1: and that's unlikely. It's more likely that this child is

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Speaker 1: going to have seven or eight or maybe ten eleven

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Speaker 1: years of a reasonably healthy father. And again there's a

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Speaker 1: temptation to rush to judgment and use words like selfish.

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Speaker 1: But I just think of all the terrible fathers at

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Speaker 1: the age of you know, people who become fathers at

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Speaker 1: the age of twenty two, who ruin their children's lives

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Speaker 1: for the next twenty twenty five years, And I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, I go, let's not be judgmental about this.

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Speaker 1: Let's just just talk about the pros and the cons.

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Speaker 1: What would be one of the pros the fact that

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Speaker 1: at eighty you've lived a lot, you've seen a lot,

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Speaker 1: hopefully you've learned a lot, and you're able in the

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Speaker 1: time that you have with that child to impart wisdom

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Speaker 1: that maybe a twenty two to twenty five year old

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Speaker 1: father wouldn't be able to do.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think Look, I mean, when it comes

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Speaker 2: to this, there have to be you have to look

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Speaker 2: at it, as I said, from so many different angles. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: if you are being born to an eighty year old alpacino,

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Speaker 2: the pros are are clear. You're going to have, you know,

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Speaker 2: as much money as you need for life. You're going

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Speaker 2: to have great education that you want to everything your

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Speaker 2: heart desires in terms of money. Yes, you will have

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Speaker 2: less time with your father. And they do speak about

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Speaker 2: that as being part of the neuropsychiatric side effect or

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Speaker 2: poor outcomes when it comes to having really old or

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Speaker 2: really so much older fathers. Is that there's this a

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Speaker 2: link to depression and anxiety and and and and and

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Speaker 2: resentment in these kids who feel like, why did you

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Speaker 2: have me if you're only going to have ten years

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Speaker 2: with me? So that is part of what they have

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Speaker 2: looked at in these studies. So, as you said, there's

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Speaker 2: pros older has lots of money, is alpacino cons is

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Speaker 2: going to have very little time And it does. It

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Speaker 2: does open the doors to a feeling of resentment and

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Speaker 2: sadness and depression and lack of stability and all those things.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much to pediatrician doctor Kate Brodie and