Abstract
According to life-history theory, paternal investment affects the well-being of offspring. We hypothesized that environmental stress caused by a lack of paternal investment may diminish maternal resource allocation during pregnancy, especially for women who already have dependent children. Our study was conducted on a representative group of more than 80,500 singleton, live-born, full-term infants born in Krakow, Poland in the period 1995–2009. Birth data were obtained from the birth registry. We found that missing data about fathers (a proxy measure of low paternal investment) was associated with higher probability of multiparous mothers giving birth to low-birth-weight infants (1.48; 95% CI 1.05–2.08), but this was not the case with primiparous mothers (1.19; 95% CI 0.89–1.59). The statistically significant synergistic effect between parity and paternal investment was found (Synergy Factor = 2.12; 95% CI 1.47–3.05, p<0.001). These findings suggest that in situations of low paternal investment, multiparous mothers face trade-offs between investing in existing versus unborn children, therefore investment in the latter is lower. Such a strategy may benefit maternal fitness due to investment in older children, who have higher reproductive value.
Highlights
The concept of parental investment [1,2] suggests that all parents’ actions contribute to the well-being of offspring and to their reproductive success
We showed that maternal reproductive effort during gestation, manifested in an infant’s birth weight, may be sensitive to environmental conditions such as lack of paternal investment and number of existing children
We found that a lack of paternal investment was associated with higher odds of low birth weight (LBW)
Summary
The concept of parental investment [1,2] suggests that all parents’ actions contribute to the well-being of offspring and to their reproductive success. Due to the limitations of parental abilities and the effort required to successfully rear each offspring, investment in a particular child is often associated with a compromise in investment in other children (present or future). Reproductive value increases with the age of a child and everything else being equal, younger offspring are less valued than older ones [4]. Larger body size is beneficial for offspring, but it is often associated with costs for the mother due to greater metabolic burden during pregnancy [6]
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