Child Welfare
Research on Biological Processes Impacted by Loss of a Father
August 02, 2017 | Emily Taylor
Recent research published in the journal Pediatrics identified biological changes correlated with the absence of a father in a child’s life. While the absence of a father, either due to incarceration, death, separation or divorce, is already understood to have adverse consequences for children, this research connected the loss of a father with a change at the cellular level. The children who lost their fathers had shorter telomeres, the protective nucleoprotein end caps of chromosomes and a core biological indicator of health.