美国的医生发现，较年长男性所育婴儿往往比较年轻男性所育婴儿面临更多健康问题。所以，生孩子还是要趁早！
Men who start families later in life should be aware of the potential health risks to their children, according to US doctors who found that babies born to older fathers tend to have more medical issues than those born to younger men.
生育孩子较晚的男性应认识到，他们的孩子面临潜在的健康风险。美国的医生发现，较年长男性所育婴儿往往比较年轻男性所育婴儿面临更多健康问题。
Researchers at Stanford University in California studied health records linked to all live births in the US between 2007 and 2016, amounting to more than 40 million babies. The records showed that children born to men aged 45 and over had a 14% greater risk of premature birth, low birth weight and being admitted to neonatal intensive care compared with babies born to younger fathers.
美国斯坦福大学的研究人员研究了2007年至2016年间与美国所有活产婴儿（逾4000万名）相关的健康记录。记录显示，与较年轻男性所育婴儿相比，45岁及以上男性所育婴儿的早产、低出生体重和接受新生儿重症监护的风险高出14%。
Infants born to men aged 45 and over also scored lower on the Apgar newborn health test, and were 18% more likely to have seizures compared with infants born to fathers aged 25 to 34 years, according to the study in the British Medical Journal. For women, the risk of gestational diabetes was greater when they had children with older men.
《英国医学杂志》周刊刊登的一篇研究报告称，45岁及以上男性所育婴儿在阿普加新生儿健康测试中得分较低，而且与年龄在25岁至34岁的男性所育婴儿相比，癫痫发作的可能性高出18%。对女性来说，与较年长男性生育孩子，患妊娠糖尿病的风险更大。
Michael Eisenberg, a senior author on the report, said that while the increased risks were modest, couples should not ignore the father’s age when it came to family planning. “This is something else to take into consideration,” he said. “There are potential risks with waiting. Men should not think that they have an unlimited runway.”
这篇报告的资深作者迈克尔·艾森伯格说，尽管风险增加幅度不大，但在做生育计划时，伴侣们不应忽视男方的年龄。他说：“这是另一个需要考虑的因素。等待是有潜在风险的。男人不要以为他们拥有一条无限跑道。”
But Eisenberg stressed that the increased risks for individuals were small. After adjusting for the mother’s age and other factors such as education and whether she smoked, he found that children born to men aged 45 and over were born less than a day earlier on average, and weighed only 20g lighter (just over half an ounce) than those with younger fathers.
但艾森伯格强调，对个体而言，增加的风险较小。在调整了母亲年龄以及其他因素如她的教育程度和是否吸烟等，他发现45岁和以上的男性生育的孩子和更年轻的男性的孩子相比，平均出生时间早不到一天，体重也只轻20克（约半盎司）左右。
More important, said Eisenberg, was the impact modest increases in health risks might have across populations as paternal age continues to rise. In England and Wales, the average age of first-time fathers has risen about a year per decade for the past 40 years, according to the Office of National Statistics.
他说，更重要的是，随着为人父年龄的持续上升，健康风险缓慢增加可能对人口的整体产生影响。英国国家统计办公室的数据显示，在英格兰和威尔士，40年来，初为人父的平均年龄每10年上升大约一岁。
“When I talk to couples about health risks, I use the lottery as an analogy,” Eisenberg said. “If you buy two tickets, your chances of winning double, but you are still unlikely to win. Even if your risk for something goes up 10-20%, the absolute risk for an individual doesn’t change that much.”
艾森伯格说：“当我和夫妻们谈论健康风险时，我拿彩票来举例。如果你买了两张彩票，你中奖的机会就会加倍，但你仍然不太可能中奖。即使你的风险增加了10-20%，个人的绝对风险也不会有太大的变化。”
Eisenberg and his colleagues suggest changes in the DNA of older men’s sperm might explain their findings. The concern is backed up by previous work, including a Harvard study last year that found births through IVF fell as the fathers’ age increased.
艾森伯格及其同事认为，较年长男子精子DNA的突变或许可以解释他们的研究成果。这种猜测得到了先前一些研究的支持，其中包括去年哈佛大学的一项研究，该研究发现，随着父亲年龄的增长，通过试管受精出生的婴儿数量下降。
In a commentary accompanying the BMJ study, Hilary Brown, a perinatal epidemiologist at the University of Toronto in Scarborough, cautioned that despite the researchers’ efforts, it was hard to disentangle the effects of the mother’s and father’s ages. And she warned that damage to DNA in older mens’ sperm was only one possible explanation for the effects.
加拿大多伦多大学斯卡伯勒分校围产期流行病学家希拉里·布朗在随上述研究报告发表的评论文章中警告，尽管研究人员做出了努力，仍难以理清母亲和父亲年龄的影响。她警告，较年长男性精子DNA受损只是解释这种影响的一种可能性。
“Studies have shown that advanced paternal age is associated with negative health behaviours such as smoking and frequent alcohol consumption, obesity, chronic disease, mental illness, and sub-fertility,” she writes, adding that all are linked to health problems in newborns.
她写道：“研究显示，高龄为父与负面健康行为有关，比如吸烟、经常饮酒、肥胖、慢性病、精神疾病和低生育力。”她还说，所有这些都与新生儿健康问题相关。
