Childbearing at Older Ages: Getting Pregnant

July 20, 2008

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Childbearing at Older Ages: Getting Pregnant

by Marjorie Greenfield, M.D.
reviewed and revised by Marjorie Greenfield, M.D.

Childbearing at an "older age" takes on a new meaning when you remember that in colonial America life expectancy was only 35 years! With better living conditions, improvements in medical care, and changes in the role of women in society, many people are now waiting to start having children until 30, 35, 40, or even later. Medically, pregnancies in women over thirty-five are said to be of "advanced maternal age."

Fertility myths and realities

Lately we've been hearing heartwarming stories almost on a daily basis about women in their forties and even fifties getting pregnant. Unfortunately, these stories have given some couples a false sense of security that there is "all the time in the world" left for them to start their families. The news reports often omit that these pregnancies in older women were conceived with donor eggs, through high tech in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. The truth is: infertility and miscarriage are significantly more common in older women.

Getting pregnant: some statistics

If a couple of maximally fertile twenty-year-olds are trying to conceive, the chance of success is about 30 percent each menstrual cycle. In essence, it is almost a coin toss each month. Most people conceive within a few cycles because their number finally comes up, just like you can figure you will toss heads if you try a few times.

In women, much more than in men, fertility diminishes with time. If a forty year old has about half the chance of getting pregnant that she had when she was twenty, her chance of conceiving each month may be only 15 percent. She may conceive the first month, but it is less likely for her number to come up in a reasonable number of tries. There are very few spontaneous pregnancies after age 44.

Planning Ahead

For couples where the woman is over thirty-five, fertility experts recommend getting help if you are not pregnant by six months of trying, and in women over forty, after three months.

If it is very important to you to have children, consider getting started as soon as it is acceptable in your life, even if the timing doesn't seem optimal. There may never be a "perfect time" to start your family.


RELATED INFORMATION

			Trying to Conceive: Myths and Truths
			Getting Pregnant
			Older Moms-to-Be
			Infertility

Created September 18, 2000
Reviewed and revised August 05, 2004

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