Having children over 45
Many more women are having children after 40.
I found this interesting article written by a woman who had her first child over 50.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/nov/09/having-first-baby-at-51
The article quotes IreneeDaly who studied women who had children later in life.
Social norms have changed, says Irenee Daly at the Centre for Family Research in Cambridge. "We don't expect women of typical university age to want to have children. We socialise them away from that. The 20s are now regarded as a time for exploration, before life's enduring responsibilities take hold." Young men and women still expect to have settled down in a stable relationship and own their own home before starting a family. "And since these things are all happening later, that pushes having children later."
For her doctoral thesis, Daly looked at whether women in their late 20s and early 30s understood the degree to which fertility declined with age and whether they thought that IVF could compensate for the effects of ageing. "There was a perception that it would work out in time. Most of the women I spoke to were shocked to learn that IVF is linked to age, that even in the youngest age group, we're talking about only a 30% success rate. Then they were doubly shocked to see that by 44 it goes down to 5% using one's own eggs."
Freezing eggs doesn't guarantee a viable pregnancy and, as Daly points out, "You have to freeze young eggs, so a woman of 40 saying that she's decided to freeze her eggs – well, what sort of quality are those eggs?"
I found this interesting article written by a woman who had her first child over 50.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/nov/09/having-first-baby-at-51
The article quotes IreneeDaly who studied women who had children later in life.
Social norms have changed, says Irenee Daly at the Centre for Family Research in Cambridge. "We don't expect women of typical university age to want to have children. We socialise them away from that. The 20s are now regarded as a time for exploration, before life's enduring responsibilities take hold." Young men and women still expect to have settled down in a stable relationship and own their own home before starting a family. "And since these things are all happening later, that pushes having children later."
For her doctoral thesis, Daly looked at whether women in their late 20s and early 30s understood the degree to which fertility declined with age and whether they thought that IVF could compensate for the effects of ageing. "There was a perception that it would work out in time. Most of the women I spoke to were shocked to learn that IVF is linked to age, that even in the youngest age group, we're talking about only a 30% success rate. Then they were doubly shocked to see that by 44 it goes down to 5% using one's own eggs."
Freezing eggs doesn't guarantee a viable pregnancy and, as Daly points out, "You have to freeze young eggs, so a woman of 40 saying that she's decided to freeze her eggs – well, what sort of quality are those eggs?"
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