Whether or not a pregnant woman will give birth to a child with Down Syndrome is not simply a matter of how old she is. Although it is a fact that as women get older, they are more likely to have a child with Down Syndrome, other factors also play a role. According to Markus Neuhäuser and Sven Krackow, from the Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology at University Hospital Essen, in Germany, the risk of a child being born with Down Syndrome is also dependent on how many existing siblings the child has and how big the gap is between the child and his immediate preceding sibling. The research is published in Springer’s journal Naturwissenschaften this week.
