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MATERNAL AGE

What is the maximum possible maternal age, after which having a baby is simply out of the question?
This is the question being raised in a major medical journal, especially in light of advanced maternal ages among women. More and more women are having children past the perceived ideal age.
It’s quite striking how the demographic of motherhood has changed dramatically in the last decade. The number of births among women between the ages of 35 and 39 increased 36% and among women 40 to 44, it jumped a whopping 70%! Now even 50 is not considered a too severely advanced maternal age. There were 263 births in this age group in 2002.

But is this just too late to be trying?
“I think like a lot of women, I waited for the perfect time and the perfect partner. I thought I had all the time in the world, which obviously I don’t.”
Leah Stein is an example of how women are opting for advanced maternal age pregnancies. Leah was 43 when she first started trying to get pregnant. “I had IVF to have Maximillion, so yes it was hard to conceive. I think I was given like a 9% chance of my IVF being successful,” says Leah.
Are women like Leah pushing the envelope when it comes to pregnancy and advanced maternal age?
Dr. Frederick Licciardi is an infertility specialist. He says, “You have to draw the line somewhere. There are upper age limits and even if it is possible to advance the maternal age to 55 or 60, my recommended upper age limit is 49.”
Up to age 30, there are four pregnancies for every ten women who try. By age 45 the fertility rate is only one out of every ten women. No question, a woman’s eggs have a freshness date.
“If we really tested the eggs of women in their early 30’s, we would find almost 40% of those eggs are abnormal. And if you test a woman in her 40’s, 90% of her eggs are abnormal,” Dr. Licciardi states.
As a result, miscarriage is much more common in advanced maternal age pregnancies.
The rate is 10% at age 20, but it’s 90% at age 45 and older. And while some spontaneous, or natural pregnancies occur in women 45 and older, most pregnancies in this age range occur as a result of in vitro fertilization of eggs donated by a woman in her 20’s or 30’s.
“If women decide to wait until they’re 40 or 42 to become pregnant, many of them will never have a chance to have a kid on their own, because they just waited too long,” states Dr. Licciardi.
The chances of having a child becomes smaller at age 30, and just plain risky in the mid to late 40’s. The bottom line: advanced maternal age pregnancies are great for women who want to wait for the perfect moment in their lives, but the fact remains that there is an ideal age range in which to get pregnant and have a baby.

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