子女越多 母親自殺風險越低

Women with lots of children might be stressed but they are less likely to commit suicide, according to a Taiwanese study that found the more children a woman has, the lower her suicide risk.

A long-standing theory that historicAlly lower suicide rates seen among married versus unmarried women reflects a "protective effect" of motherhood, rather than advantages of marriage per se.

Researchers at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan said this latest study supported that theory.

The study looked at 30 years of data on 1.3 million Taiwanese mothers and found that women with two children were 39 percent less likely than those with one child to commit suicide.

Researcher Dr. Chun-Yuh Yang said that the risk was 60 percent lower among women with three or more children.

The study, reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was based on birth and mortality records for Taiwanese women who had their first child between 1978 and 1987. Yang followed death rates for the study group through 2007.

Suicide was uncommon regardless of the number of children the women had.

Among women with one child, there were 11 suicides per 100,000 women per year. That rate was seven per 100,000 among women with two children, and just under six per 100,000 among mothers with three or more children.

When Yang factored in a number of other variables -- including the women's age at first birth, marital status and education level -- the number of children a woman had remained linked to suicide risk.

Yang said it was possible that women with a large brood of children benefit from greater emotional or material support when times are tough. Women who have several children also spend a larger share of their lives caring for young children compared with mothers who have one child.

He said mothers who feel "needed" may be less vulnerable to suicide.

However, Yang added that it was also likely that women who are already more vulnerable to suicide -- because of serious depression or other psychiatric illnesses -- tend to have fewer children.

Although the current study included only Taiwanese women, Yang said the findings were likely relevant to other countries with studies conducted in Norway, Denmark and Finland finding a similar relationship between a woman's number of children and her risk of suicide.

生養孩子多的女性可能會感到很累，但與此同時，這些女性自殺的可能性也較低。臺灣的一項最新研究發現，女性生養的孩子越多，自殺風險越低。

長期以來的理論表明，從歷史上看，已婚女性的自殺率低於未婚女性，這反映出“母親”這一身份的“保護性效應”，而並非是婚姻本身。

臺灣高雄醫科大學的研究人員稱，這一最新研究爲這一理論提供了支持。

該研究對三十年來臺灣130萬名母親的數據資料進行了分析，發現有兩個孩子的女性比只有一個孩子的女性的自殺風險低39%。

研究人員楊俊毓博士說，有三個或三個以上子女的女性的自殺可能性低60%。

這一研究在《加拿大醫學協會期刊》上發表，該研究基於1978年至1987年間臺灣生育第一個孩子的女性的生卒記錄。楊俊毓於2007年對研究對象的死亡率數據進行了跟蹤調查。

研究發現，無論女性生養幾個孩子，自殺現象並不普遍。

在育有一個孩子的女性中，每年每10萬人中有11人自殺；在育有兩個孩子的女性中，每10萬人中有7人自殺；而在有三個或三個以上孩子的女性中，這一數字不到6個。

楊俊毓還考慮了其他一些可變因素，包括女性生第一個孩子時的年齡、婚姻狀況和教育水平，結果發現女性所生養孩子的數量仍然和自殺風險有關。

楊俊毓說，這可能是因爲孩子多的女性在困難的時日裏能得到更多的情感或物質支持。而且與只有一個孩子的女性相比，有多個孩子的女性要花更多的時間來照顧小孩。

他說，感到自己“被需要”的母親不容易出現自殺傾向。

但他說，也有可能是因爲那些原本就有自殺傾向的女性生養孩子較少，比如患有嚴重的抑鬱症或其他精神疾病的女性。

儘管目前的這項研究只涉及臺灣女性，但楊俊毓說這些發現與其他國家的研究發現存在關聯。在挪威、丹麥和芬蘭開展的研究也發現，女性生養的孩子的數量和她們的自殺風險之間存在類似的聯繫。

Vocabulary:

per se: used meaning ‘by itself’ to show that you are referring to something on its own, rather than in connection with other things 本身；本質上

factor in: 把……因素包括進去