Is there any disadvantage to being an older parent

asks mayastar:
A. Whatever the disadvantages may be, you won't be on your own. According to the Office of National Statistics, over the past 20 years women have been having babies later. And in the last ten years, the number of 30- to 34-year-old women giving birth has exceeded the number of 20- to 24-year-olds.

The number of men in their 40s having children has risen by half in 10 years.

Q. Is having babies later a new thing
A. Not at all - it just went out of fashion for almost a century. In the late 19th century, a woman would often be a grandmother by the time her younger children were born, with births spread over many years.

US research shows that in the 1920s, the average age at which women had their last child was 42: now only 12% of babies are born to women over 35.

Q. What are the health problems associated with having babies later
A. There's an increased chance of the baby having Down's syndrome. When a mother is 35, the risk is one in 1296. By the age of 45, it has risen to one in 29.

There's also a higher Caesarean rate in older mothers.

And then there's the tiredness, which can be more pronounced with age.

Q. Are there any other problems
A. Experts point out that grandparents, if they are alive, may be too old to offer support to the parents and take an active part in their grandchildren's lives.

Also, Dr Stella Aquarone, director of the School for Infant Mental Health and the Parent-Infant Clinic in north London, points out that parents may have waited so long to have children, they can find it difficult to let the children be themselves and develop their own identities. In this case, the children feel they can only be themselves when they are not with their parents.

Q. What are the advantages
A. Older parents are more likely to have the financial and emotional stability to provide a consistently safe environment for a child to grow up in.

The Leicester University Parenthood Research Group has done a lot of research into older parenthood and found that children born to older mothers are more often breast-fed and also tend to be of slightly higher intelligence.

Dr Julia Berryman, a senior lecturer in psychology at Leicester University, and an authority on older mothers, said that having children later keeps people young. More than 90% of the older mothers surveyed said they thought it had given them a zest for life.

• Older fathers: Eric Clapton 56, Tony Blair 48, David Bowie 54, David Jason 61, Michael Douglas 56.
• Older mothers: Madonna 41, Jane Seymour 44, Susan Sarandon 45, Cherie Blair 45.

Do you have something to say about being an older parent Post it here

Sheena Miller