There is no doubt that being a parent can be physically and mentally exhausting on many occasions. However, it also has health benefits, as researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (USA) have found. In a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine , researchers Sheldon Cohen and Rodlescia Sneed show that when exposed to the common cold virus, fathers and mothers are 52% less likely to contract the disease than those who have no offspring . In their experiments with 795 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55, the researchers found that pregenitors with one or two children were 48% less likely to get sick, while parents of three or more children decreased the incidence of colds a little more: 61% lower. And that was true whether the children lived at home or outside the family home.
At the moment, researchers have not found an explanation for why fatherhood has a protective effect against infections, since "it cannot be attributed solely to their being more or less exposed to viruses through children." Although they say that more research needs to be done to identify the link, for now they suspect that it could be attributed to some psychological effect. "For example, being a parent can be stressful, but it also encourages the development of a social network and provides a goal in life," they explain.
