If you're older than 35 and hoping to get pregnant, you're in good company. Many families are delaying pregnancy well into their 30s and beyond — and delivering healthy babies. Taking special care can help give your baby the best start.
While delivering at age 35 and older is officially considered “advanced maternal age,” Dr. Kalish notes that in reality, there's no “magic number” for being at-risk for complications. “A healthy 38-year-old could have an easier pregnancy than a 20-year-old who has multiple medical issues,” Dr.
While it may take a bit longer to get pregnant if you're 35 or older, the average time it takes to conceive is still high. Women under 25 have a 25 percent chance of conceiving per cycle, compared to 15 percent among women between the ages of 35 to 39 (the rate drops to 5 percent by the age of 40).
Women over age 35 take longer to conceive – The average time it takes a couple over 35 to conceive is 1-2 years, so try to remain positive if you do not become pregnant immediately.
A woman's peak reproductive years are between the late teens and late 20s. By age 30, fertility (the ability to get pregnant) starts to decline. This decline happens faster once you reach your mid-30s. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely.
Geriatric pregnancy is a rarely used term for having a baby when you're 35 or older. Rest assured, most healthy women who get pregnant after age 35 and even into their 40s have healthy babies.
So as you get older, you have fewer and fewer eggs, and the eggs you have aren't easily fertilized by a man's sperm. All this makes it harder for you to get pregnant. If you're older than 35 and have been trying for 6 months to get pregnant, tell your health care provider.
Pregnancy Risks in Advanced Maternal Age
Your chance of miscarriage is increased, along with an increased risk of developing gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and having a child that is preterm. You are also at risk for conceiving a child who has a chromosomal abnormality, such as Down's syndrome.
Current supplementation policies designed to prevent neural tube defects may incidentally prevent Down's syndrome, provided a sufficiently high dose of folic acid is used.
The risk of chromosomal abnormality increases with maternal age. The chance of having a child affected by Down syndrome increases from about 1 in 1,250 for a woman who conceives at age 25, to about 1 in 100 for a woman who conceives at age 40.
Older mothers are more likely to have a baby affected by Down syndrome than younger mothers. In other words, the prevalence of Down syndrome increases as the mother's age increases.
After age 35, there's a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications that might lead to a C-section delivery. The risk of chromosomal conditions is higher.
As men age, their risk of fathering a child with Down syndrome may increase—the older the man, the more likely that the process of spermatogenesis, or sperm production will go awry, leading to sperm that contain errors like an extra chromosome.
Down syndrome, which arises from a chromosome defect, is likely to have a direct link with the increase in stress levels seen in couples during the time of conception, say Surekha Ramachandran, founder of Down Syndrome Federation of India, who has been studying about the same ever since her daughter was diagnosed with ...
Although women older than 35 years of age make up a small portion of all births6 in the United States each year, about nearly one-half of babies with Down syndrome are born to women in this age group.
You can't prevent Down syndrome since it's a genetic condition. To learn more about your risk of having a child with a genetic condition, talk to your healthcare provider about genetic testing.
The extra chromosome 21 leads to the physical features and developmental challenges that can occur among people with Down syndrome. Researchers know that Down syndrome is caused by an extra chromosome, but no one knows for sure why Down syndrome occurs or how many different factors play a role.
Screening for Down syndrome can be performed as early as 11 to 14 weeks of pregnancy with a first trimester ultrasound and blood test. Screening can also be performed between 15 and 20 weeks by a blood test referred to as the multiple marker serum screening test.
A Mother's Age at Conception
In the majority of Down syndrome cases, the errors in cell division that lead to the extra 21st chromosome come from the child's mother. (4) “As maternal age increases, risk for Down syndrome increases,” Heller says.
Ultrasound looks at the fluid in an area of the baby's neck called the “nuchal fold.” If the fluid level is higher than normal, it could be a sign of Down syndrome.
For some parents, infancy is the hardest. For others, it's toddlerhood. Some parents feel that the preschool years present special challenges.
Another study showed women who gave birth after 40 were four times more likely to live to be a 100 years old. No matter when you decide to have a kid, it should be the right time for you. It's worth noting that there may be plenty of other factors that contribute to living longer.
Childless men and women have an overall higher mortality than adults with children, meaning that they die earlier, recent studies show.