NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- Fathers of unhealthy infants in the United States are less likely to stick around after the baby's first birthday than fathers of healthy kids, a study said.
And an infant in poor health increases the chances of couples -- married or cohabitating -- that had been living together would not be under the same roof one year to 18 months later, said the study published in the journal Demography.
"Within a very short period, having a child in poor health increased the likelihood the parents became less involved," reported Nancy E. Reichman, of Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, who conducted the study with Hope Corman and Kelly Noonan of Rider University and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The researchers, assessing couples' connection by whether the they were married, cohabiting, romantically involved, just friends, or not involved, studied 5,000 sets of new, mostly unwed parents at hospitals in 20 U.S. cities and again shortly after their child's first birthday.
They found 5 percent of the children studied were in poor health, including low birthweight, a disability such as cerebral palsy or Down syndrome and appeared to have serious developmental delays.
