Older Moms, You Just Might Live Longer

Lots of women delay starting their families for various reasons. Now it turns out that delaying child-bearing might be a way of living longer, according to a study published in the journal Menopause. Women who gave birth to their last child after age 33, had double the odds of "exceptional longevity" — which is defined as living to about 95 — as did women who had their last child before age 29, according to the Long Life Family Study.

But as NPR is quick to note, having children later in life isn't necessarily an effective anti-aging strategy, and the offspring born to older moms are more prone to health concerns.

One thing that the study's author pointed out was that women who were capable of bearing children at older ages might have reproductive systems that simply age more slowly. And so goes the reproductive organs, so goes the body, apparently. "We think that a woman's ability to have children at a later age is evidence that her reproductive system is aging more slowly, and that the rest of her system is also aging more slowly," Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at Boston Medical Center and author of the paper, told NPR.

This study confirms other research that linked certain genetic traits in women who conceived when they were older to overall longevity. None of the women in this study received fertility treatments.