Depression linked to lower likelihood of having children

Men and women with treated depression appear to be less likely to have children or have fewer children relative to their counterparts without the condition, a study has found.

Researchers conducted a nationwide register cohort study that involved 1,408,951 individuals born in Finland from 1960 to 1980. They identified depression diagnoses using data from the Care Register for Health Care (ie, inpatient hospital episodes 1969–2017 and specialist outpatient visits 1996–2017).

The main study outcomes of having biological children, the number of biological children, and the age at first birth were determined using the Population Register of Statistics Finland and defined either at the last year of the follow-up in 2017 or the last year alive or living in Finland.

Secondary-care treated depression was associated with a lower likelihood of having children among both men (odds ratio [OR], 0.66, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.64–0.67) and women (OR, 0.84, 95 percent CI, 0.82–0.85), as well as with a lower number of children (men: incidence rate ratio [IRR], 0.86, 95 percent CI, 0.86–0.87; women: IRR, 0.96, 95 percent CI, 0.96–0.96).

Depression correlated with a slightly lower age at first birth (men: 33.1 vs 34.0 years, p<0.001; women: 31.3 vs 32.1 years, p<0.001). The severity of depression showed dose-response associations with a decreased likelihood of having children and a lower number of children. Both outcomes were also linked to earlier onset of depression and depression among men and women in middle and high educational groups.

No associations were observed for low-educated men, whereas depression correlated with a higher likelihood of having children and a higher number of children among low-educated women.