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My mother was 40 years old when she gave birth to me back in 1985, and she is still alive to see her son at the age of 24. There is a very good chance that she will still be alive to see me turn 40 because by that time she will only be 80. Especially since she regularly exercises and does not smoke, do drugs, or drink alcohol.
Great. I didn't mean that 40 year olds shouldn't have babies. I said that the notion that perhaps you missed the opportunity to be pregnant should maybe come to you around 40 or 45. A lot of other people have said the same thing. I'm not sure why I keep getting flack on this thread. I think doctors would agree that it isn't a good idea any later in life than that. After 36, even.
35-39 years old: 414,253
40-44 years old: 86,065
45-49 years old: 5,408
50-54 years old: 428
Close to 6,000 birth to women between 45 and 54 years old means that there are more children born to these ages, than we know from those single cases that reach the media.
cdc data has nothing to do with cases reaching the media. I would think it is actual data reported by hospitals. I don't see any reason to think the number is higher than the CDC is reporting.
(CNN) -- The average American woman can live long enough to celebrate her 80th birthday, so if a woman is able to become pregnant using in vitro fertilization with a donor egg at 56, she could still watch her child grow into an adult. But just because it's possible, does that mean she should?
I don't think a 50+ female should be thinking about having kids of her own at that age. Perhaps they should start thinking about retiring somewhere warm and spending vacations with her grandkids instead.
50 is the latest. i just read in the paper today about the spanish woman from europe who a couple years ago came to CA and had IVF. she lied and said she was 56. she was really 64 or 65. she got pregnant with twins. great for her.
fast foward to today and the woman is dead of cancer at 67years old. she leaves behind
a set of 2 year olds.
while this case is extreme, it does highlight what people might consider selfishness by a woman. she thought she would live to see this kids grow up. how? who knows, but at her age she should have never done that.
50 is ok. you should still have a good 25 to 30 years left. after 55, thats not nice for the kids. they might only have 20 years together.
Great. I didn't mean that 40 year olds shouldn't have babies. I said that the notion that perhaps you missed the opportunity to be pregnant should maybe come to you around 40 or 45. A lot of other people have said the same thing. I'm not sure why I keep getting flack on this thread. I think doctors would agree that it isn't a good idea any later in life than that. After 36, even.
Not giving you flack rkb, but just offering the info about my doctor..she's been nothing but supportive. I had a battery of tests, and at the age of 46/47, she sees no reason to not proceed.
For the record, we're going ahead with it, kids can become orphans at any age, and the likelihood of course increases with age. But mid-40s is not too late.
The main bugbear for me with older parents was that they looked more like grandparents than the other parents. But I'll try hard to not 'nanna-fy' myself too much.
It used to be a big deal to have kids in her 30s. An older woman across the street says "I had a surprise pregnancy, 11 years after my last!" And she was 33 then. Her 35yo daughter is her best friend now.
Then came a period of "scary" pregnancies at around 40. A whole medical idea was invented that 35 is supposed to be an arbitrary cut-off age. At 34 and 10 months, go ahead and no special tests will be performed on you. At 35 and 2 months old, you will have to undergo all kinds of tests for abnormalities. (By the way, I met only younger women with Downs kids, - maybe they need to do the screening for everyone?)
40 years old is quite young nowadays... The new 30s, they say? A woman giving birth at 40 is not a big deal anymore. Yawn.
So I guess the battle line has moved now to 50? Ah, poor doctors still stuck with their absurd 35 year old line... To tell the truth, not many doctors look at this cut-off anymore. Sudden increase in possible tragedies after your 35 yo birthday? Nope.
Anyway, I agree with jacq63 about "never say never" - it's hard to imagine what life will throw at you in 10 or 15 years. Women live till 90 nowadays - if the kids are going to be 40 or 50 when their mothers pass away, it's no different from the 1960s when mother's passed away in their 60s with 40-year old kids, too.
They say, if a woman became a mother later in life, she will live longer (her system will know that she has to rear a person). Well, that happened to my hubby's mother who lived to 94 - she gave birth to her only children at 37 and 41 - that was in the 50s. He had his own kids at 55 and 57 - (healthy!!! impossible!! ) - so our kids' grandparents on his side were born almost a century before them.
Right now, 55 looks old to me. 45 looked old back when I was 35. 35 looked old back when I was 25 and so on. I guess it's the way it goes.
That is WAY too old to begin having kids! Just today, I saw some parents of kids who appeared to be between 6-8 and the parents looked like their grandparents. I was done having children before age 30; I made that choice on purpose. I didn't want to be 50 attending a high school graduation or parenting tweens or teens, let alone having a newborn, toddler or elementary school-age child. Later for that!
People may feel younger when they are older now, but our biology has not changed. We will die by 80, for the most part. That means people having children in their 50s may die when their children just reach adulthood and certainly before they ever see any grandkids.
Having had my children in my mid-late 20s, my husband and I look dramatically younger than the parents dropping off their kids at my children's school. They must be at least 15 years older than us, on average. If you are approaching menopause or need medical interventions to get pregnant (because you're just too old to get knocked up naturally), then you need to stop! Men, too. If you're beyond your early 40s, hang it up, for sure.
BTW, I will be 47 when my youngest is done with high school.
Not giving you flack rkb, but just offering the info about my doctor..she's been nothing but supportive. I had a battery of tests, and at the age of 46/47, she sees no reason to not proceed.
For the record, we're going ahead with it, kids can become orphans at any age, and the likelihood of course increases with age. But mid-40s is not too late.
The main bugbear for me with older parents was that they looked more like grandparents than the other parents. But I'll try hard to not 'nanna-fy' myself too much.
well, every situation is different. I have a cousin who married for the first time in her mid-late 30's, tried for years to get pregnant, and finally did twice in her early 40's. I'm very happy for her and her husband. But, if a woman is single and 40-45, perhaps she would just figure it was too late, or would figure she should have them by herself and not wait for a husband. OVER 50, it is just hard for me to fathom having kids at that stage.
It used to be a big deal to have kids in her 30s. An older woman across the street says "I had a surprise pregnancy, 11 years after my last!" And she was 33 then. Her 35yo daughter is her best friend now.
Then came a period of "scary" pregnancies at around 40. A whole medical idea was invented that 35 is supposed to be an arbitrary cut-off age. At 34 and 10 months, go ahead and no special tests will be performed on you. At 35 and 2 months old, you will have to undergo all kinds of tests for abnormalities. (By the way, I met only younger women with Downs kids, - maybe they need to do the screening for everyone?)
40 years old is quite young nowadays... The new 30s, they say? A woman giving birth at 40 is not a big deal anymore. Yawn.
So I guess the battle line has moved now to 50? Ah, poor doctors still stuck with their absurd 35 year old line... To tell the truth, not many doctors look at this cut-off anymore. Sudden increase in possible tragedies after your 35 yo birthday? Nope.
Anyway, I agree with jacq63 about "never say never" - it's hard to imagine what life will throw at you in 10 or 15 years. Women live till 90 nowadays - if the kids are going to be 40 or 50 when their mothers pass away, it's no different from the 1960s when mother's passed away in their 60s with 40-year old kids, too.
They say, if a woman became a mother later in life, she will live longer (her system will know that she has to rear a person). Well, that happened to my hubby's mother who lived to 94 - she gave birth to her only children at 37 and 41 - that was in the 50s. He had his own kids at 55 and 57 - (healthy!!! impossible!! ) - so our kids' grandparents on his side were born almost a century before them.
Right now, 55 looks old to me. 45 looked old back when I was 35. 35 looked old back when I was 25 and so on. I guess it's the way it goes.
I don't believe that! If that were true, this 69 year old with the 3 year old twins wouldn't have died.
I don't believe that! If that were true, this 69 year old with the 3 year old twins wouldn't have died.
That woman is a fuzzy point because she used IVF and a donor egg. She was, at 66, long past menopause. I said that I'm wary of pharmaceutical "helpers" because it's a gamble with unknown.
This is a recent research pointing that older mothers live longer:
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) - so our kids' grandparents on his side were born almost a century before them.
