When is it too old to have a baby?

Was only discussing this with my OH earlier. I am 34 and she is 32 and currently pregnant with our 3rd child. This was pretty much the final chance for us as I had a cut off point of 35 in my head. There's a lot of factors why, mainly medical, but there is a part of me which doesn't want to be too old when my kids are growing up. Also when I was growing up most of the kids who were little sh!ts seemed to have older parents who couldn't control them.

Speaking of geriatric pregnancies. Geri is currently pregnant at 44.

For a woman it's 40.
Two women I know had babies at the same time both at 40, one was fine and the other has profound Down's syndrome. Those were both natural pregnancies, I know of someone else who had a perfect baby through IVF at 45.

Al Pacino's ex (the mom from National Lampoon's European Vacation) had twins with him when she was almost 50.

Gael23 wrote: »

For a woman it's 40.

What is 40? Too old? According to whom?

Had this discussion recently with my cousin in her late 30s and her partner is 53 who are "thinking" about children. I asked whether her partner was planning to retire in his 60s or work at least until 75 as that's when the child would be off to university. Love and all else aside, to look at this from a very practical perspective.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

What is 40? Too old? According to whom?

It's not arbitrary :P After approximately 40 (there is some variation, of course), the risks of various issues increase out of proportion to the rate at which they were increasing through your late twenties and thirties. I'm not sure exactly what the rate is, but the chances of a Downs' baby is something like five-fold. Mind you, the rate at which you get a false positive in testing for Downs' also increases with age. This is to do with the increased chances of chromosomal abnormalities in general - most of them are fatal to a baby, Downs is one of the rare ones that isn't.

Apart from that, there is a greater risk of pre-eclampsia (which can be fatal to the mother), diabetes, miscarriage, more difficult delivery (you're less elastic with age, so to speak). There is also some correlation between being over forty-ish as a father and a baby having autism.

The risks associated with pregnancy for the mother is increased further if she is a primagravida (first pregnancy).

Having said all that, my mother was forty and my father forty-eight when I was born (I was a bit of a surprise), and I came out reasonably normal.

dfeo wrote: »

I think in Ireland if a woman has a baby over 35, it's considered a geriatric pregnancy. Christ :P

Yeah, pretty much.

40 is really the risk point. The statistical incidence of genetic disorders like Down's and the serious fatal ones is logarithmic and takes a pretty big leap from 40+.

Women who become pregnant after 35 are automatically advised to get a genetic screening done to check for abnormalities. Not that you can do anything about anything you find, but nevertheless it's automatically advised after 35.

I would say getting pregnant at 40+ ethically requires you to monitor the pregnancy more closely. IMO it would be reckless to just let nature decide what happens, and you should get whatever tests and screening you can to allow you to make an informed decision on the future of your child. Especially if you already have children - any special needs child you bring to term could realistically become a dependent on your other children in 20 years. Is that fair?

Worth noting for men that it's also not as simple as banging away into your 70's. Studies have shown that the genetic quality of sperm also degrades around 40 and continues to degrade, leading to increased genetic defects in their children. The likes of Ronnie Wood having kids approaching 70 is highly irresponsible IMO - from other perspective too, such as these kids' father potentially dying of old age before they hit their teens; or worse developing dementia.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

What is 40? Too old? According to whom?

It's when the risk of Downs Syndrome increases hugely.

I would take it that the menopause is nature's clever way of letting you know that timthriall Babies is finished.
The average age for that is 51 I believe.

I would see the 'risk' here as a product of time not of potential complications due to age.
As in you shouldn't risk leaving it too late as you never know when the menopause will happen.
The earlier you try to conceive then the more time you have obviously as you only get 12 chances 'launch windows' per year to get pregnant.

Taking 51 as the menopause.

A 25 year old has 312 chances of conceiving.
A 42 year old has 108 chances.