Your Bones May Never Be The Same Again After Having Children

A primate mother has to make a lot of sacrifice to keep her young. macaques have been found to have a permanent mark on their skeletons.

Female macaques show lower concentrations of calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium in their bones compared to those who haven't had a child.

The findings of this study help inform how major life events can leave a signature in the skeletal tissues of primate.

The primate bones are not like concrete pillars. The growth of bones is affected by lifestyle factors.

Most of us know that bone density can be lost with age, especially after menopause, but sickness, diet, climate, and pregnancy can leave a permanent record in calcified tissues that can be "read" in the afterlife.

Evidence shows that the mother's body can pull calcium from her bones when there isn't enough to go around.

The bones of a mother are used to make milk. There is a way for scientists to notice when the minerals are lost.

Identifying if a person has been pregnant using only their bones is controversial. Today's methods and interpretations for signs on the pelvis from childbirth are vastly different. Maybe we should look inside the bones instead.

The skeleton responds to changes in reproductive status even before fertility is stopped.

Evidence of reproduction is "written in the bones" for life according to the findings.

The study is based on seven naturally deceased rhesus macaques, four of whom were female, but even among this limited group, femur bones showed relative changes that could only be explained by pregnancies and breastfeeding.

Compared to males and females who had not been born young, the two macaques that had reproduced in their lifetimes had a different bone composition.

The changes in calcium and magnesium were related to giving birth.

The authors think their results are a sign of bone resorption during reproduction, but further studies are needed to say for certain.

The detection of parturitions from mineralized tissues is still a vastly unexplored area of research with significant implications for evolutionary, conserved and archaeological studies.

The same can be said for other animals if more research is done.

It's possible that the signal of reproductive events could be masked by changes in diet and environment.

There was a study published.