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Updated: May 19, 2026

Using the Activity-based Anorexia Rodent Model to Study the Neurobiological Basis of Anorexia Nervosa
Published on: October 22, 2015
Childbearing and mortality among women with anorexia nervosa
Fotios C Papadopoulos1, Georgios Karamanis, Lena Brandt
1Department of Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Uppsala University, Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden. fotis.papadopoulos@gmail.com
Objective:
To assess the association between childbearing and mortality from anorexia nervosa (AN).
Method:
A total of 5,251 females, from a population-based Swedish registry, admitted with an AN diagnosis during the period 1973-2003 were included. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were estimated and hazard ratios (HR) were calculated using Cox regression.
Results:
Nulliparous women had a sixfold higher mortality due to natural causes and ninefold higher mortality due to unnatural causes compared to the general population. Parous women had higher mortality compared to the general population only due to unnatural causes. Suicide was the most common cause of death. Childbearing was associated with a 65% lower mortality. One hundred forty four women out of 1,941 parous women were hospitalized perinatally for any psychiatric disorder (7.4%).
Discussion:
Childbearing is associated with lower mortality among women with AN.
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