• Recent research by Erico et al assessed the link between women's parity and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk to discern if it's directly from pregnancy or related to child-rearing factors.

• The investigators utilized data from two National Health Surveys in Italy, comprising 20,904 men and 25,246 women, tracking CVD incidence until 2014 through record-linkage with national mortality and hospitalization archives.

• The results noted that CVD incidence significantly increased among men with 3 or more children, and among women with 2 or 3+ children, compared to those without children. 

• However, no significant gender differences were observed.

• Subjects with lower socioeconomic position (SEP) displayed stronger associations with parity and a higher number of children for both genders, with no modifying effect of employment status observed.

• Hence the study concluded that child-rearing may contribute to CVD risk, especially among disadvantaged families, although the simultaneous effect of pregnancy cannot be entirely excluded.

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