Please participate in this POLL: Where you a first-born child?

[Maria3667]

Came across this study claiming there's a higher association between first-borns and primary Sjogren's. Nah, surely, this can't be true? Let's have a show of hands!

The poll will show above this post after you're logged in to the forum. Please participate!

Thank you

[eye2dry]

Yes...I too am a first child.

Shelly

[Maria3667]

Hi Shelly,

Interesting!
Please cast your vote in the poll!

[araminta]

I've voted, and yes I am a firstborn.

[Joe S.]

Or have family sizes decreased over the years?

[Maria3667]

For me it has, as I have ... none ! 

[Judes]

I'm Number 8 of 8.

[Carolina]

Dear Joe,

A Gallup Poll found that in America, there was a shift, in 1971, from a family preference for four children, to a preference for two children.

The reasons: availability of birth control, increase in the number of women who work, and the increasing cost of raising children.

When most people lived in the farming environment (70% in 1920, now about 3%) children were vital because they could do some of the work necessary to farming.  Now children do not contribute to the economic success of the family, as a general rule.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/08/ideal-size-of-the-american-family/

Today, most people will either be the oldest or the youngest, since their family of origin probably consists of only two children. 

As the child of parents who were both only children,I feel fortunate to have married my husband, who is the  9th of 11 children.  All of his siblings had education beyond high school, and were successful and interesting people.  My two children are part of 28 grandchildren, and their children have  60 second cousins.   

Regards, Elaine

[ohiolady]

Yes, I am the first born.

Anna

[Maria3667]

So it looks like the study has got it right! Even though this small numbers of voters does not represent a large community, it does seem there is a stronger connection between Sjogren's and first borns.

Maybe the author meant first born females? In that case I should raise my hand too, because 2 brothers precede me...

The remaining question is why there is a high correlation between first born (females) and Sjogren's...?

[Deb 27]

I chose to answer yes, that I was the first born child to my mother because my other siblings were adopted. However, I was not the oldest. They adopted two children because they were infertile and then I came along many years later.

[Scottietottie]

My mother always told me I was a bad prototype. My brother and sister were always a lot healthier than me.

[Nomad]

I voted. I?m a first born and an only.
How interesting, as there are many first borns here.

Elaine...were you an only too?

Here is lineage regarding being an ?only,? and all these are first botns too in a way:
My grandmother: only
Her son: only
Me: only
My husband: only

Our son would of been, but we chose to adopt a child as our second child.

[Navigator]

Someone asked why this might be.  Having read quite a bit about autoimmune diseases, there is a correlation with cleanliness and with being raised in a well developed country...probably again a correlation with lack of exposure to those parasites and  microorganisms that we evolved alongside over the last 100,000+ years.

It has been further shown that these exposures to microorganisms etc. are, in many cases, time sensitive. If you are exposed during certain windows in your infanthood/childhood the result is positive. But if you miss the window and are not exposed until later in life the result can be illness .   It is fascinating.

First borns would tend to live in more controlled cleaner environments before all those germy siblings showed up. Later siblings catch stuff from the older at a younger age.  Maybe that has something to do with it.

[Nomad]

Lol
Along those lines...I got the chicken pox a few days before my 30th birthday.