Older women giving birth

[AB Asks]

In the news recently we have been hearing a lot about older women giving birth. The oldest woman so far is a 67 year old who had twins thanks to fertility treatment.

Women in general are now having babies when they're older; it can be pinned down to their desire to have a career and a home before having children. But are these women who are having babies in their forties a burden on the NHS?

It is well known the older you are the more trouble you are likely to experience when being pregnant and during birth? Or are these women sensible � waiting until they are completely ready before having children?

[jiggy-gb]

If it were financially practical for a woman to actually plan a pregnancy in her early 20's then all's well and good, but how many can say that's the case rather than them just getting caught out and making do?

Years ago when all women had families early, men made the money and women kept home and family. How many men can keep a family and home on one wage these days?

Until that happens again, most sensible women who actually plan a family, cannot afford to have their first child until well into their 30's. I put off having children until i was in a postition financially with my partner to be able to afford to keep a child in a secure home, and i'm still trying to have a child and fast approaching my 40's 3 years later. No doubt after working from the age of 17 i'll be told i'm ineligible for IVF treatment on the NHS now?

Perhaps i should have been more inconsiderate and just gone for it without actually considering the future?

[Eve]

I think that the medical resources for assisted fertility should be targetted at younger women who are unable to concieve naturally.

My mum was seen as old when she had me, her first, at 30. My aunt had a daughter young then remarried an older man and they've now got 2 little ones. When the youngest is my age, 28, her dad will be 85.

[miffy63]

I hate the way people assume that they can get what they want when they want it, especially if they have money.

Our bodies are designed to work with nature and changing that is just man playing God, which is wrong, wrong, wrong!

When you reach your 40's your body starts to slow down so by the time you're in your 60's you are in effect starting to die. Having a baby at this time in your life is dangerous not only to you but to the child, and places a lot of pressure on society not to mention the NHS when the mother becomes ill or even dies.

We should work with nature not against it.

[Pippa68]

This isn't a debate about women having children in their 30's or 40's.

We are talking about the cases of women having treatment in their late 50's and 60's.

A woman is supposed to still be fertile (to a degree) in her 30's and 40's. Of course there are many women who aren't, they have a problem and need help..which I support. However giving a woman who is supposed to be a grandmother the total resposibility of raising a baby/child is irresponsible IMO.

[cazz218]

the menopause is there for a reason - if you have passed it then nature is saying you are too old to have kids! if you want to be a career woman then be a career woman you can't have everything!!

[joko]

so why can men still have children until the day they die?

why hasn't nature said "you're too old to have kids" tothe male ...?

[Pippa68]

Maybe because the don't have the hardest work with the kids..the pregnancy, the birth, the feeding..etc

Probably one of those neanderthal reasons, anyway..the fact that they were there to keep the population of the clan going, then beggar off and do it somewhere else!

[mel007]

Great news to hear that women can have children in their 60s and hopefully more will do so in the future when we get away from sexist, ageist attitudes. There is few questions asked when some hidious ugly old man has a child in his sixties, seventies and eighties in fact they are congradulated. Why are people so agiest towards women the longest lived sex? People have such short memories, one hundred years ago the average life expectancy for a woman was 49 most women were not alive to see their last child reach 10, so why do we condem women who want children in their 60s when the average life expectancy of a woman is nearly 80 today? I say if we are going to keep people alive longer we must also keep their fertility going longer otherwise what is the point of living past 50 for a woman? Hopefully their will be a time in the future when the avearge age for a woman to start her family will be 50 a good age to be a mother. It is women in their teens and early twenties who should not have children, children having children is quite sick and that is why we have so many problem children, because children are having children.
In China they have a law saying that women should not have children under 25 in order to control the amount of babies being born, I say this law should happen here too and we should encourage women to have a future like men have and start their families in a more sensiable time when they are more mature and have lived a bit first. like in their forties or fifites. Just because things are natural it dosn't make it good. It is not natural that people live after 50 so if we are going to have an extended life expectancy so we should have a longer fertility time to go hand in hand with our extended life.

[Nay35]

I tried for a baby for 6 years and was on fertility drugs which didn't work so stopped and then I fell pregnant naturally at 28. Didn't have any more after that cos my Husband left me for another woman when our son was 6 weeks old.

I am now 35 and am ready to have more but my boyfriend (28) isn't, so I feel I am running out of time because I am worried about the risks of Downs, there is one in my Son's School.