Pregnancy actually increases your biological age, but you can undo it: study

Moms will tell you pregnancy ages them, but now there’s a study to support that theory — with an interesting caveat.

Being pregnant ages a woman by about two years, but there’s a way to turn back time. A woman can reverse her biological age by 8 years by giving birth, according to a study from the Yale Child Study Center published in Cell Metabolism last month.

“At three months postpartum, we saw a remarkably large decrease in biological age, by as much as eight years for some individuals, so while pregnancy increases biological age there is a clear (and pronounced) recovery in the postpartum,” assistant professor Kieran O’Donnell, PhD said in a Yale School of Medicine press release. 

However, not all women recovered at the same rate. Women who could be classified as obese and who had a higher body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy didn’t age in reverse as much as women with a lower BMI, who were in the more normal weight range. 

Breastfeeding also lowered the moms’ biological age. These findings could pave the way for more aging research. 

“Lots to follow up on here,” O’Donnell said.