The British Journal of Psychiatry (1971) 118: 22-28. doi: 10.1192/bjp.118.542.22
© 1971 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Motherhood and Childlessness in Monozygous Twins

Part II. The Influence of Motherhood on Health

A. MALMQUIST M.B.1 and L. KAIJ M.D.2

1 Staff Psychiatrist, University of Lund, Malmö Allmänna Sjukhus, S-214 01 Malmö, Sweden
2 Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry

As a complement to previous studies of childbirth's influence on health, we have investigated 51 pairs of female monozygous twins discordant for childbirth. All the twins were older than 40 years when examined and the majority were past their fertile period: this enabled elucidation of the long term prognosis. The women were studied with respect to the occurrence of psychiatric, somatic and gynaecological symptoms. There were no differences in symptomatology between the probands and their controls before the first partus of the probands (probandship). After probandship, the probands exhibited a significantly higher psychiatric, somatic and total morbidity compared with their co-twins. These differences in morbidity were correlated with six background variables: age, civil status, parity, age at first partus, cause of childlessness, and the internal dominance relationships of the twins. The results are discussed.

Submitted on September 25, 1969