Sámi records show boys are tough on their mothers

Sámi birth and death records show that Sámi mothers’ life spans are 34 weeks shorter for each son they give birth to.

This figure came from a study of information that Finnish churches recorded between 1640 and 1870.

Researchers found the total number of children a Sámi mother gave birth to and raised did not affect her life span, but there was a drop in a mother’s life span for every boy born and raised by her.

Her life span increased for the number of daughters born and raised.

That improvement was due to “the human family system in which the daughters help their mothers in everyday tasks,” the report says.

Researchers only looked at women who lived to be over 50, and took into account whether a woman’s husband had died, since raising a family alone would be stressful.

“Our results suggest that giving birth to sons had a higher relative long-term survival cost for mothers than giving birth to and raising daughters,” wrote Finnish researcher Samuli Helle and his colleagues in the journal Science.