Having babies may up your risk for needing joint replacements later on

What do having babies and hip replacements have in common? Well, it seems that the more babies a woman has, the higher her risk gets for having to have a joint replacement later in life. (Maybe someone should warn Michelle Duggar?? And the Duggars’ 18th baby is a….)

In a study of over 1 million women done in the United Kingdom, women who had children were compared with women who never had children. The results showed that with each child, a woman’s risk of needing a hip replacement later on rose by 2% and a knee replacement by 8%.

There also seemed to be a bit of a connection between age of first menstruation and joint replacements. If a woman began menstruating before the age of 11 years, she had a 9% higher risk of needing a hip replacement later and a 15% higher risk of needing a knee replacement, compared with women who began their periods after the age of 11.

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Image: iStock.com

Tags: pregnancy blog, knee replacement, joint replacement, hip replacement, having babies