Having children later: better for mother, better for child, both or neither?

Over the past 30 years women have been electing to have babies later in life, despite the fact that fertility begins to decrease after the age of 28 (Destiny, September 2014).

According to Professor Igno Siebert, reproductive medicine specialist at the Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, 60% of women at fertility clinics around the world are over 36 years. He says they come to the clinic to increase their chances of conceiving as they are running out of biological time. He says most of the women are fit and healthy. So what is the issue? It’s their eggs, he says. “Age plays a major role in egg quality and the increase in chromosomal abnormalities … as do lifestyle factors, such as smoking, drinking, and being overweight.” Egg quality starts to deteriorate between the ages of 28-30, with a major drop at 40-41. By the age of 43, the live birth rate is less than 7% - and therefore donor eggs are considered when wanting to conceive. Freezing eggs is also a possibility for many women after 30 years who want to have a child, but for good quality the eggs should be frozen when a woman is in her late 20s.

Are their any disadvantages for the mother or child when delaying motherhood? Mandy Rodrigues, a Johannesburg clinical psychologist, maintains that there are both physical and emotional downsides to later motherhood. As well as emotional pressures from relatives, friends, work peers, and acquaintances, physical downsides include high blood pressure, diabetes, risk of miscarriage, and chromosomal abnormalities.

But there are many advantages to later motherhood. Women may be more financially secure, more realistic and knowledgeable about what having a child entails, more patient and tolerant, and likely to be less stressed.

And there’s more … a seven-year American study in the 1980s of more than 50,000 children found that the older the mother, the higher the child’s intelligence quotient (IQ). Scientists are not quite sure why, although they speculate that it was associated with “age-related attributes [of the mother] like wisdom, judgement, restraint, and economic security.”

www.destinyconnect.com

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