As much as mothers, fathers' mental health has been shown to have an effect on their children's healthy birth. Even if the father has a mental illness, the risk of premature birth is high during childbirth. Sweden's Karolinska Institute recently announced in the international journal PLOS Medicine that it analyzed data on Nordic parents born in Sweden between 1997 and 2016 and their births.
Of the total 1.5 million babies, 15% were born to parents with mental illness, while 5.8% were born prematurely to parents without mental illness.
As a result of the researchers measuring the risk of premature babies with the presence or absence of mental illness of the father and the mother, the father's mental illness increased the risk of birth to 6.3%, and the mother's mental illness to 7.3%.
The researchers found that the risk of premature birth was much greater in parents with multiple mental illnesses. When both parents were diagnosed with mental health, the risk of premature birth was the greatest, affecting 8.3% of babies born.
Premature birth refers to the delivery of a baby between 20 and 37 weeks of pregnancy based on the pregnancy period. Premature birth can cause negative health consequences, including anemia, jaundice, immune system problems, cerebral palsy, and risk of sudden infant death syndrome.
"Children of parents with mental illness are at increased risk of being born too early," said researcher Dr. Wi Yao-in. "The mental health of both mothers and fathers is also important to be born as healthy children."
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