Men who experience mental health problems in their teens and young adulthood are more than six times more likely to father a baby who is born prematurely, Australian researchers report.

The impact is seen even if the father experienced symptoms years before conception, according to the world-first study led by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne.

Men who had symptoms of common mental disorders in both adolescence and young adulthood had a 17% risk of fathering a premature baby, compared to a 2% risk for other men who had not experienced such symptoms, the study showed.

The research involved 398 women and 267 men from the Victorian Intergenerational Health Cohort Study.