The association between the number of life births and certain frailty dimensions

The association between pregnancy (in terms of number of life births, miscarriage/stillbirth and abortion) and frailty is poorly understood. Therefore, our aim was to fill this gap in knowledge.

A subsample of n=488 women aged 65 or older from the nationally representative German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Adults (DEGS1) was used. Physical frailty was defined as low grip strength, exhaustion (SF-36 item), low physical activity (absence of sports or exertion), slowness (Timed Up-and-Go test > 15 seconds), and low body-mass-index (< 23 kg/m²). With regard to pregnancy: The number of live births, the lifetime presence of miscarriage/stillbirth, and the lifetime presence of an abortion were included in regressions.

Adjusting for various confounders, multiple logistic regressions revealed that having 3 or more live births in the life course (compared to no live birth) was associated with a reduced likelihood of slowness (OR: .23, 95% CI: .06-.99) and a lower likelihood of low grip strength (OR: .32, 95% CI: .11-.89), whereas the other pregnancy-related factors were neither associated with the other frailty symptoms nor with the likelihood of overall frailty among older women.

Some evidence was found for an association between a higher number of live births and a lower likelihood of slowness and low grip strength (as part of the frailty criteria) - which may indicate an active and healthy lifestyle among those women. However, the association between pregnancy and frailty remains poorly understood. More work is required in this research area.