infant mortality

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Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
Poverty Drives The Tragic Infant Death Rate In Tennessee

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MerryLilly
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
What a weird conclusion :-S

Actually, I really believe (healthy) relationships between grandparents and grandkids (girls and boys) should be more encouraged in developed countries.

If I remember ok, there are also studies showing how these kind of relationships are actually very beneficial to both parts. #grandmothers
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bklyn155
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
"These signals might be a special smell, or just facial resemblance."

Facial resemblance, this always make me wonder...since mirrors are a fairly recent development, for most of human evolution no one knew what their own faces looked like. So this would have to be a modern phenomenon. #grandmothers
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la.donna.pietra
10/28/09

@bklyn155: We've been able to look in puddles for pretty much all of human evolution. #grandmothers
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soykatrina
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
"Also kind of creepy: the scientists speculate that grandchildren give off "signals" that show how genetically related they are to their grandmas. These signals might be a special smell, or just facial resemblance."

This cracked me up because I envision grandmas looking at their grandchildren through some sort of computer generated genetic radar. Every time she glaces at someone with whom she shares genes pulsating beeps gain speed. She glances at the grandson and then her granddaughter and gives the cookie to the granddaughter because genetic radar told her to protect her genes. #grandmothers
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Working-for-the-weekend
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
My grandmother overfed and spoiled my brother rotten. She taught me how to bake and cook and told me not to eat too much. My brother is now morbidly obese and can't take care of himself. I guess I should thank her? #grandmothers
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Dorilys
10/28/09

@Working-for-the-weekend: Technically, she increased your reproductive fitness and the likelihood that you will adequately care for your offspring, ensuring that her genes will be passed on through you. She did this while decreasing your brother's reproductive fitness, however. #grandmothers
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Dorilys
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
If anyone is interested, I believe the article is available free at the Proceedings of the Royal Society B journal website. #grandmothers
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Dorilys
10/28/09

@Dorilys: And is, incidentally, much clearer. I think some of the information in the article is presented in such a way that the obvious conclusions aren't complete or are wrong.
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Edited by Dorilys at 10/28/09 10:37 AM Dorilys was starred Dorilys was unstarred

Atomic Bowling
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
Ok, for one, have human females always lived "well beyond menopause"? Because I'm thinking that for much of our history as a species people were dying at thirty or forty, not in their eighties as now seems to be common. I'm not sure if they were also going through menopause much earlier, but it's certainly true that women that age now are not even in menopause, let alone well beyond it. Anyone know about this?

Also, this article gives no indication if the mortality rates were compared against those for infants with no grandmother around. I recall reading somewhere that infant boys have an overall higher mortality rate on average (can't recall where I read this, sorry). If that is true, then is it possible that the grandmothers are simply not benefiting their son's sons, as opposed to actually having some kind of harmful effect on them. #grandmothers
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theKP
10/28/09

@Atomic Bowling: Yes, boys do have a higher infant mortality rate. That's a really good point. I've tried to find out why, and the only explanation that I've ever found is that girls have XX chromosomes, so the second X can help offset any genetic problems with the first. Boys, on the other hand, have XY chromosomes, and thus might be more susceptible to genetic problems. And this seems to have been true over a long period of history. #grandmothers
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Dorilys
10/28/09

@Atomic Bowling: The authors looked at survivorship of male grandchildren in the presence of the maternal grandmother as well as the paternal grandmother. Survivorship was significantly better in the presence of the maternal grandmother compared to the paternal grandmother. That suggests strongly against the possibility that the decrease in male grandchild suvivorship in the presence of the paternal grandmother may just be an general decrease in male grandchild survivorship. #grandmothers
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la.donna.pietra
10/28/09

@Atomic Bowling: It was a lot more unusual for people to live into their 70s-80s in the past (even prehistoric times), but it definitely happened. Paleoanthropologists have found a number of elderly Cro-Magnon skeletons. Average life expectancy shouldn't be confused with possible life expectancy. The odd thing is that possible life expectancy hasn't changed all that much--your chances of making it to 80 have improved, but your chances of making it to 130 haven't.

Menopause is trickier to track, for obvious reasons, but it also seems to hit at about the same time (forties or fifties) regardless of time period. (Nutrition is a factor, though.) #grandmothers
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Atomic Bowling
10/28/09

@Dorilys: How so? Based solely on the article (and if you've found the study itself, I would love a link to it, actually), there is no indication that the survivorship was significantly better, just that the difference was enough it is noticeable. Without information about how the rates compare to mortality rates among infants who had no grandmothers present, it's kind of impossible to tell whether male infants with paternal grandmothers around are actually receiving a negative effect from the grandmother or if they're just not receiving the same kind of positive effect male infants with maternal grandmothers do. To determine that we'd need to know how the mortality rate of male infants living with paternal grandmothers compares to overall male infant mortality rate, and the mortality rate of male infants with no grandmothers present in their lives (and again, if this info is in the study I would be interested to see it, but it wasn't in the article). #grandmothers
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Atomic Bowling
10/28/09

@la.donna.pietra: Ah, that makes sense, thank you. So that basically means that despite it being much less common in the past, there were still women having menopause well prior to their deaths, which as has been pointed out is unusual in the animal kingdom and worth note. #grandmothers
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la.donna.pietra
10/28/09

@theKP: There are also slightly more male infants born relative to female infants, which seems to have some weird connection with the higher male mortality rate. Basically, it all evens out--though how evolution managed to make that work is beyond me. #grandmothers
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morninggloria
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
My paternal grandmother used to stop fights between her grandchildren by marching into the room where the melee was occurring and singing "The Volga Boatmen Song" in an opera voice.

I suppose my brother and male cousins disliked it more than the granddaughters did. I didn't realize that such a hilarious disciplinary technique could be fatal. #grandmothers
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Mireille is German for the Bart, the.
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
Correlation doesn't indicate causation. This is stupid.

Tall people bump their heads more often. Bumps on the head can cause concussions. Therefore, being tall causes concussions. That's some science right there!

Personally, I barely knew my paternal grandparents, and what I knew of them made me happy for that. #grandmothers
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pantsless economist...access RESTORED
10/28/09

@Mireille is German for the Bart, the.: Ya rly. I thought we all learned this in stats in 10th grade. #grandmothers
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Rare Affinity
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
This might explain why my friend’s sister-in-law threatened to send her son to stay with his paternal grandmother when he was misbehaving. I have to say the child is such a genuinely nasty brat at times if he were my grandchild, I would be sorely tempted to bump him off myself out of sheer shame that he had even a quarter of my genes.
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Edited by Rare Affinity at 10/28/09 9:53 AM Rare Affinity was starred Rare Affinity was unstarred

Alwaystheangel
10/28/09

@Rare Affinity: Harsh Bananas! He must be a monster #grandmothers
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Rare Affinity
10/28/09

@Alwaystheangel: Having been chucked out of his new public (fee-paying school) as a result of his atrocious behaviour, he was only readmitted when his parents sought medical help and had him put on ritalin. His paternal grandparents were so much the epitome of urbane good manners, I feel sure he must have inherited his baleful attitude from the maternal side. That and the belief that his parents should have stopped him behaving like a spoilt brat years ago when it first became an issue.
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Edited by Rare Affinity at 10/28/09 10:38 AM Rare Affinity was starred Rare Affinity was unstarred

PaigeTurner
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
this adds a whole new layer of complexity to the film grandma's boy #grandmothers
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PandaGrrl
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
So, this is a reason why my mother in law shouldn't visit me and my son? #grandmothers
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cuteasabutton
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
Also that picture is trying to convince my ovaries that I should be a mother. #grandmothers
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andBegorrah
10/28/09

@cuteasabutton: It's convincing me that grandmothers should reconsider their stance on only shoving the boys into the oven - she looks delish! #grandmothers
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madeofawesome
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
So...in other words, correlation now equals causation? #grandmothers
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pantsless economist...access RESTORED
10/28/09

@madeofawesome: Apparently so. This doesn't even make sense. Since a paternal grandmother shares more genes with her granddaughter, the granddaughter is less likely to die? #grandmothers
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
I'm rather curious about what countries they used, since it held true in 6 of 7 but not the 7th.

Couldn't another interpretation be that the grandmothers are more likely to go "Oh boys will be boys!" and let the sons do dangerous things while preventing the girls from doing traditionally masculine activities? #grandmothers
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BlueMorpho
10/28/09

In reply to Boys Beware: Grandmas Hazardous To Grandsons' Health
My Dad's grandmother liked yelling at him in German. If you've got to terrify grandchildren, then terrifying them in German is the way to go. #grandmothers
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cuteasabutton
10/28/09

@BlueMorpho: My Chinese grandmother could speak German, and yes things were always seemed to be scarier when spoken to in that language! #grandmothers
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