Mothers That are 30 and Over

Although it still happens these days, the truth is that a lot of people are waiting to have kids. Women these days put off having children until they finish studying and establish themselves professionally. Divorce is also a very common thing these days as well and many women find themselves in the situation in which they want to have children with their second husband but after they are already in their thirties or forties, and even into their fifties.

Is there such a thing as being to old to have a child? Well, in the past the answer used to be when menopause came around, when the body no longer produced healthy ovules that could be fertilized to turn into embryos. However, nowadays since technology has advanced so much there is such a thing as in vitro fertilizations, which allow women to use ovules donated from another woman, the wonderful thing about this is that they can even be used for women that have already had menopause meaning they can get pregnant as well.

One question that a lot of women ask about is what age is it considered a woman is more likely to come up with problems due to pregnancy? Usually any woman that is over thirty-five years of age enters into the definition of having a maternally advanced age. Women that are over this age have a special term because of the incidence of certain chromosome abnormalities that increases with maternal age. At thirty-five years of age, the risk starts to increase significantly.

At thirty-five years of age, the risk of the fetus having some type of chromosome abnormality is as big as the risk of losing the baby when an amniocentesis is done in the mother, which is around 0,5 percent. There are certain places in which the hospitals and doctors will offer genetic tests to women that are over thirty-five years of age whether this is an amniocentesis or a biopsy of the hair cavities. But this sort of thing varies from country to country.

Not to be discouraged though, the good news is that besides the increase of certain chromosome abnormalities, babies of women that are over thirty five and even over forty, have just as many chances of being born healthy. These mothers have a higher risk than the average of getting preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, and of having a cesarean, but the risk is not too high and in most cases when there is a complication, it is only minor things. Obviously how a woman’s pregnancy will be largely depends on the basic health of the woman: if the woman is over forty eight years of age for example and is a very healthy woman that has taken care of herself, her pregnancy will probably go about wonderfully.