Children of older mothers have a more extensive early age vocabulary and are better at recognising shapes and patterns, a leading paediatrician has said.
Dr Alastair Sutcliffe, a reader at the Institute of Child Health at University College London Hospital, said that across a range of developmental indicators, “older mothers have more positive outcomes”.
His research, which will be presented to the annual conference of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in Glasgow tomorrow, has looked at the outcomes for children born to women aged over 40.
He said that although much had been written about the risks of pregnancy later in life, “very little is known about children born to older mothers”.
He found that as the mother’s age goes up, so