But does that mean that it’s safe to start a family later in life? Are there other risks and complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth in your 50s and 60s – or even your 40s?
Changing demographics
A woman’s reproductive capacity has a finite lifespan. Her eggs initially grow when she is inside her mother’s womb, and are stored inside her ovaries until she begins to menstruate. Each month, more than 400 eggs are lost by attrition until the four million she originally had are gone, and menopause begins.
Social and financial pressures are driving many women, who want to have children, to wait until later in life.
Around one in 1 000 births occur to women 45 years or older. This rate is likely to increase as new technologies emerge, including egg donation.
What are the risks?
Women aged over 30 are more than twice as likely to suffer from life-threatening high blood pressure (pre-eclampsia) during pregnancy than under-30s (5% compared with 2%) and are twice as likely to have gestational diabetes (5 to 10% compared with 1 to 2.5%).
More than half of women aged over 40 will require their baby to be delivered by caesarean section.
Increasing maternal age increases the chance of dying during the pregnancy, or during childbirth. Mothers in their 40s and 50s are also between three and six times more likely to die in the six weeks following the birth of the baby than their younger counterparts, from complications associated with the pregnancy such as bleeding and clots.
Mothers aged over 40 are more than twice as likely to suffer a stillbirth. And for a woman aged 40, the risk of miscarriage is greater than the chance of a live birth.
Finally, babies born to older mothers are 1,5 to 2 times more likely to be born prematurely (before 36 weeks) and to be born small (low birthweight). Low birthweight and prematurity carry both immediate risks for the babies, and later problems with lung development, and obesity and diabetes as an adult.
