Abstract
THE risk of producing offspring with mongolism (Down's syndrome) increases abruptly with maternal age after the age of 30. German1 argued that a decreasing frequency of coitus with age, and an increase in the average interval between the follicular release and the fertilization of the female germ cell, might account for the observed age dependence. He regards the second maturation division as the vulnerable stage, during which errors in chromosomal segregation could occur. Cannings and Cannings2 criticized this argument on the grounds that it fails to account for the general form of age dependence. James3 disagrees both with German and with Cannings and Cannings. He concludes that German's hypothesis cannot, without auxiliary hypotheses, account for the magnitude of the age dependence3.
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BURCH, P. Down's Syndrome and Maternal Age. Nature 221, 173–175 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1038/221173a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/221173a0
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