Teen Dads Cause Birth Defects In Children

Teenage dads cause more birth defects in children, says Peter Foster and team, in a study titled Elevated Germline Mutation in Teenage Fathers, published on Feb 18, 2015, by the Royal Society. The study included 24,097 parents and children from the Middle East, Europe and Africa. The DNA analyses on germline, the egg or sperm cells were focussed on repetitive microsatellite DNA mutation and not on the point mutation.

The low female mutation doesn’t increase with age, reported the study, meaning that the birth defects caused by female germline mutation are less and at the same time does not increase with age. The germline of teenage male showed 30 per cent higher mutation rate than the female germline, suggesting a high risk of producing children with birth defects, says the study. The germline of aged male, 50 years and above showed 1.5 percent higher mutation rate than the teenage dads, said the study.

There are only few cell divisions involved in female germline, but the male germline continuously divides, a process referred to as spermatogenesis. During spermatogenesis, there are higher chances of mutation due to failure in copying a gene at cell division, says the study. In teenage male germline analysis, a higher number of cell division during spermatogenesis is observed, indicating elevated DNA mutation rate in the zygote, reported the study. The male germline pass six to nine times more mutated gene to their children than than female germline, suggesting that fathers could cause higher birth defect in children than mothers.

The children of 15-year-old dad are likely to have about 30 per cent more mutation than the children of young dads, said Foster and his team. It might be because the whole of the sperm production system could be prone to errors as it is not fully optimised just then, added Foster.

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