Males that are born short have two and a half times the risk of attempting a violent suicide when adults than average length babies, a new study suggests.

And catch-up growth during childhood does not change this, say the researchers.

This is in contrast to other research which suggests that once short babies achieve normal height, their risk of schizophrenia, lower cognitive function and other mental health problems decreases.

“But this was not true for suicide attempts,” says Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who led the study.


The team followed up 318,953 men born in Sweden between 1973 and 1980 until their first suicide attempt, death, emigration, or the end of 1999.

Womb link

Violent deaths were defined as hanging, shooting, cutting, jumping from height or in front of a moving vehicle, drowning, or intentionally crashing.

The team found both that males born measuring less than 47 centimetres, and those of low birth weight (below 2.5 kilograms or 5.5 pounds) presented a similar risk of a violent suicide attempt. Whilst being born preterm (before 34 weeks) increased the risk over four-fold.

Being born normal length (51 to 52 cm) but remaining short as an adult increased the risk of attempting suicide by 56%. The taller a man was, the less likely it was that he would attempt suicide.

Mittendorfer-Rutz says the research shows that violent suicide attempts were more strongly linked to the period in-utero than non-violent attempts.

“We know that serotonin metabolism is linked to depression and suicidal behaviour,” she says. “It could be a link with prenatal exposure or it could be the effect of any kind of stress on serotonin metabolism.”

Early effects

Such stresses might be maternal alcohol, drug abuse, or smoking during pregnancy that can lead to fetal growth restriction or preterm birth and so increase their child’s risk of suicidal behaviour and mental disorders later on, she adds.

The effects of short stature on health have been documented previously. In 2000, Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist at University of Oxford, UK, showed that tall men were more likely to marry and have children than shorter men.

It has also been shown that women find tallness attractive, and studies have shown that stature correlates with income in men, but not women.

“This seems to suggest that small body-size effects start very early,” says Dunbar.

“The interesting question is whether this is some kind of organic effect or whether this is a cumulative ‘playground effect’,” he says. “Because you never quite catch up if you start small, so all your life you find yourself at the bottom of the social pile. One could imagine that this might give rise to suicidal tendencies eventually.”

Journal reference: Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (vol 62, p 168)

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