Dad's Genes May Affect
Length of Pregnancy
Excerpt by Merritt McKinney, Reuters Health

Women whose pregnancies last longer than usual may be able to place some of the blame on the dad, a study released Thursday suggests.

Danish researchers found that a father's genes may play some role in determining how long pregnancy lasts.

"We showed that a previous prolonged pregnancy, especially with the same partner, was an important risk factor for a new post-term delivery," study author Dr. Annette Wind Olesen told Reuters Health.

Together with other information, the results of the study may help doctors predict which women will have a prolonged pregnancy, according to Wind Olesen.

The findings may also "add to our sparse knowledge on what triggers the initiation of human delivery," she added.

Besides being uncomfortable for an expectant mother, a pregnancy that lasts 42 weeks or longer increases the risk of complications for both mother and child. But little is known about what causes prolonged pregnancies, which occur in about 5% of all births.

Now it seems the genes of a baby's father might play some role, Wind Olesen and colleagues at the University of Aarhus report in the March 1st issue of the British Medical Journal.

In the study of women who had given birth at least twice, 20% of women whose first pregnancy lasted 42 weeks or longer had a second prolonged pregnancy.

But when the first child and second child had different fathers, only about 15% of women had a second prolonged pregnancy.

Among all women, including those who had normal-length pregnancies, the length of pregnancy varied by more than one week in women who had changed partners.

SOURCE: British Medical Journal 2003;326:476.

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