Parenthood and host resistance to the common cold
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 20, 2026
Evaluation of Host-Pathogen Responses and Vaccine Efficacy in Mice
Published on: February 22, 2019
Rodlescia S Sneed1, Sheldon Cohen, Ronald B Turner
1Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. rsneed@andrew.cmu.edu
Objective:
To determine whether parenthood predicts host resistance to the common cold among healthy volunteers experimentally exposed to a common cold virus.
Methods:
Participants were 795 healthy volunteers (age range = 18-55 years) enrolled in one of three viral-challenge studies conducted from 1993 to 2004. After reporting parenthood status, participants were quarantined, administered nasal drops containing one of four common cold viruses, and monitored for the development of a clinical cold (infection in the presence of objective signs of illness) on the day before and for 5 to 6 days after exposure. All analyses included controls for immunity to the experimental virus (prechallenge specific antibody titers), viral strain, season, age, sex, race/ethnicity, marital status, body mass, study, employment status, and education.
Results:
Parents were less likely to develop colds than nonparents were (odds ratio [OR] = 0.48, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.31-0.73). This was true for both parents with one to two children (OR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.33-0.83) and three or more children (OR = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.22-0.70). Parenthood was associated with a decreased risk of colds for both those with at least one child living at home (OR = 0.46, 95% CI = 0.24-0.87) and those whose children all lived away from home (OR = 0.27, 95% CI = 0.12-0.60). The relationship between parenthood and colds was not observed in parents aged 18 to 24 years but was pronounced among older parents.
Conclusions:
Parenthood was associated with greater host resistance to common cold viruses.
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