March 30, 2001. Copyright 2001. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Small babies less likely to marry

LONDON, March 30, Graphic News: Men who were small at birth are less likely to marry, British researchers said on Friday.

Small babies begin life at a disadvantage because their tiny size increases their risk of developing diabetes, asthma, respiratory problems and heart disease as they grow older. Researchers at the Medical Research Council unit at Southampton General Hospital in southern England have now shown that in addition to health problems, small male babies may encounter social ones as well.

ÒIf you are a small baby you seem less likely to marry,Ó endocrinologist David Phillips told Reuters.

The researchers knew unmarried men also had higher rates of heart disease and they suspected that birth weight and single status could be linked. In two studies of more than 5,000 men they found that men who had never married were smaller at birth and shorter and thinner at the age of 15 than the men who tied the knot.

ÒLinks between marital status and health may be established during intra-uterine life,Ó Phillips, whose research is reported in the British Medical Journal, added.

The researchers studied 3,477 men born in Finland between 1924 and 1933. Using birth data, school records and census information they compared birth weight, adolescent height and marital status of the men. All the 259 men who had never married had been small babies and were, on average, two cm (0.8 ins) shorter and 2.4 kg (5.3 lb) lighter as teenagers than their married counterparts. Most of the unmarried men were also earning lower incomes. A similar study Phillips and his team did of British men born in the 1920s found the same link between size at birth and marriage.

The researchers are not sure why low birth weight would influence whether or not a man marries, but they think babies who were born small were under-nourished before birth which may have caused physiological changes. These changes may explain why unmarried men had higher rates of heart disease and shorter life spans.
/ENDS
Sources: Reuters, British Medical Journal