“Don’t wait too long to have a child” experts regularly recommend. But researchers from the London School of Economics are shaking up some preconceived ideas. Their study reveals that children born to mothers who gave birth in their thirties have superior cognitive skills to those born to younger or older mothers.
Why giving birth at 30 could promote cognitive development
The study, carried out among 18,000 British children, compared the intellectual performance of young people aged 10 to 11, depending on the age of their mother at the time of their birth. Result: children of mothers in their thirties do better than others in several areas.
The researchers measured their reading, reasoning and memorization skills. These were generally better among children born to women aged between 30 and 39, compared to those who became mothers in their twenties or forties. It is therefore not only a question of parental maturity, but also a potential lever for intellectual enrichment in the child.
Significant social and financial factors
According to the authors of the study, mothers in their thirties often benefit from more stable living conditions: they are better integrated into professional life, are financially stable, and more emotionally available. So many parameters that make it possible to create a more stimulating environment for the child: access to books, extracurricular activities, enriching discussions, shared quality time… These elements form a favorable breeding ground for the awakening of curiosity, learning and memorization.
In addition, at this age, mothers are generally more informed (fewer of them smoke, for example) and come from a more advantaged socio-economic background than younger children, a determining factor well documented in studies on the intellectual development of children.
Having a child in your 30s can be very beneficial for the mother too. A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society had also highlighted the fact that giving birth after the age of 35 would protect the mother from cognitive decline. This type of pregnancy is often accompanied by more rigorous medical monitoring, which can also play a positive role on fetal development and the health of the child.
What science says, and what it doesn’t say
Be careful, however, not to make this study an absolute rule. As the researchers point out, the link between mother’s age and child’s intelligence is correlated, but not causal: it is not age itself that makes the child more intelligent, but everything that it implies or reflects.
It’s also not about making those who become mothers sooner or later feel guilty. Many other factors are involved in the intellectual development of a child: affection, attention, stimulation, but also the family context, genes, social relationships, and of course school. The choice of when to have a child remains of course personal, often dictated by chance or life.
What this study highlights is that motherhood around the age of thirty seems, statistically, to provide elements which, combined, can offer a slight boost to children to flourish intellectually. In France, the average age of women at the birth of their first child is 31 years old.