Best age for childbearing remains 20-35 - Delaying risks heartbreak, say experts
Main Category: FertilityArticle Date: 16 Sep 2005 - 14:00 PDT
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Delaying having children defies nature and risks heartbreak, say experts in this week's BMJ. If women want families and room for manoeuvre they are unwise to wait till their 30s.
They believe the best age for childbearing remains 20-35 and call on doctors and healthcare planners to support women to achieve "biologically optimal childbearing."
Pregnancies in women older than 35 are increasing markedly in Western countries, write Susan Bewley and colleagues. Age related fertility problems increase after 35 and dramatically after 40, and once a woman is pregnant, outcomes for both the mother and child are poorer.
Delaying also affects partners, as semen counts deteriorate gradually every year, and children of older men have an increased risk of schizophrenia and several genetic disorders.
Despite these difficulties, most pregnancies in women older than 35 have good outcomes, but obstetricians and gynaecologists have seen dramatic demographic changes in two decades and are witnesses to the resultant tragedies, they write.
It is ironic that as society becomes more risk averse and pregnant women more anxious than in the past, a major preventable cause of this ill health and unhappiness is unrecognised, they say. "Public health agencies target teenagers but ignore the epidemic of pregnancy in middle age."
Women want to "have it all" but biology is unchanged. Their delays may reflect disincentives to earlier pregnancy or maybe an underlying resistance to childbearing as, despite the advantages brought about by feminism and equal opportunities legislation, women still bear full domestic burdens as well as work and financial responsibilities.
The reasons for these difficulties lie not with women but with a distorted and uninformed view from society, employers, and health planners. Doctors and healthcare planners need to grasp this threat to public health and support women to achieve biologically optimal childbirth, they conclude.
Editorial: Which career first? BMJ Volume 331, pp 588-9
Emma Dickinson
edickinson@bmj.com
44-207-383-6529
BMJ-British Medical Journal
http://www.bmj.com
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Visitor Opinions In Chronological Order (10)
Stop blaming women
posted by Bridget on 9 Aug 2010 at 3:32 pm"Women" want to have it all??? Who are you kidding? The author makes it sound as though women are the only ones who are delaying parenthood. All the women I know are having an exceedingly difficult time finding men who will commit to a lousy cup of coffee let alone marriage and family. Even the women I know who are married or co-habitating are all with MEN who don't want kids. One of them even went and secretly had a vasectomy and never told his wife!!!
Has it ever occurred to the author that perhaps there are a lot of women out there who would LOVE to have a family and can't find a MAN who is willing to have children?
Men today want all the perks and privileges of manhood with none of the responsibility. They all want to be Hugh Heffner. Stop blaming women for everything. We are not the ones known for being committment-phobes.
reply
posted by Aaron on 14 Aug 2010 at 1:25 amHas it ever occurred to you that the reason so many men aren't willing to commit to a marriage and fatherhood is because of the way the system is stacked against them once they put their neck in that noose? Anything goes wrong in that afore-mentioned marriage and he is guaranteed to be robbed blind and raked over the coals in addition to losing his child to the biased family court system...
I agree!
posted by Sdw on 30 Aug 2010 at 10:20 amI happen to agree with both of you I'm surprised whoever wrote this didn't enter in men that dont want to commit. I'm 30 dont have kids but I'm not married either. Coming home to my father pregnant at 20 wouldnt of been my dads dream out come true! And I think I speak for most dads even though Im a woman you dont want your daughter knocked up at 20 because thats prime because society says so.
Men at this point don't hardly want to date a coffee date to them spells marriage. Sometimes coffee is just coffee and a date is just that a date. If you are married and have a man thats going to be there for the kids and you thats different.
But I agree most men want to live like Hugh Hefner and I dont think we even need to mention how many famous guys that are married have kids and are having numerous extramarital affairs.So to me there's no hurry! I don't want a baby by a man that wants to be Hugh Hefner or Tiger Woods. I agree the family system is biased, the woman will usually raise the kids. Men who owe 90,000 in child support out there. Women are waiting later because men dont want to commit dont want to have the responsiblility of a serious relationship much less an infant.
men make us delay
posted by yemurai on 21 Oct 2010 at 5:39 amI totally agree that its men's common behavior after you have children with them that makes us women want to have children later when we feel men are more settled and ready to be and act like a father. If possible I would like to have my child at 29 or 30 when I feel my man is ready for the change that fatherhood brings in our relationship. Wouldn't want to feel like my life is now on hold and his is still the same.
Stop Blaming Men
posted by Jamel on 28 Oct 2010 at 1:39 pm@Bridget
Many women are delaying having children because of their careers. Men are more apprehensive to have children because we know that if there's a divorce the mother will have the power in family court. The mother has primary rights to keep the children just because she's the mother and she can practically extort her ex. Let's also not forget that many marriages are just miserable nowadays because women are being told that being bitchy is being strong.
Clarification please
posted by JP on 10 Nov 2010 at 3:37 pmJust so we are clear, you are asserting that there are women incapable of finding a man to start a family with them. Is this because no man wants to settle down with them or because they lack the ability to attract such a man into their life?
The Reality
posted by Kris on 9 Jan 2011 at 7:50 pmWomen mature on average (both physically and psychologically) faster than men. By the time we (both men and women) grow up, the guy is more than likely older and the woman is more than likely younger. Why? Women who want children are keenly aware of their own time-line, men are not. Society has done a disservice to men (and to women) by perpetuating the idea that it is ok to be eternally immature.
There are numerous books on the subject, but suffice it to say - men no longer have role models to show them what it means to be a REAL man. A real man knows who is, what he wants, and CAN COMMIT to a relationship that is loving and supportive, but women will never find such a man if they buy into the cultural hogwash being peddled. I would suggest to any woman who thinks their man cannot commit to take a hard look and see if you are in fact dating a man, and not a boy. To be absolutely clear - maturity is the key, not age, but for us men it more often than not is mutually inclusive.
Agreed
posted by Lauren on 31 Jan 2011 at 11:00 amI personally don't think that people are fully responsible enough to have chilren until AT LEAST their late 20s. My husand and I are 30 and 31 and have no children yet. I hope within the next year to be pregnant or to be trying. My parents were 31 when I was born and that was in the early 1980s. Financially right now, it would be unwise to bring a baby on board and I think that's a responsible outlook.
Who Bears the Brunt
posted by AnnJones on 10 Feb 2011 at 3:03 amBoth Aron and Jamel represent that basic nonsense victim mentality of the modern man. In the absence of unquestioned adoration, affection and validation of your manliness as a woman I become a confused "bit**" tainted by the feminist movement.
I find that the writing in this article does reflect a bias toward child bearing at a particular age as a necessity and in the best interest of the child's health. The reality is that for a host of reasons attributed to issues experienced by both men and women that child bearing is being delayed into our forties.
It is the responsibility and in fact obligation of the scientific community to seek strategies that mitigate the possible negative effects of falling pregnant in your thirties. My body, I decide when I will have a child. What would be helpful, instead of threatening the health of my child whom I will not consider having before age thirty - would be to target useful information and resources for women in this age group.
And of course it makes sense to wait, enough men walk out on their wife and children in favor for a younger woman, or just to relive their youths alone without the burden of children. This is not the rule, but it happens more than the doting father who is cut off of his children (save for cases where he was having an affair, things get very ugly very quickly).
In South Africa fathers are so useless and irresponsible that we have had to link outstanding payments of maintenance to our traffic fining system, such that your outstanding maintenance payments can be picked up if stopped in a roadblock. Two friends I went to varsity with sued their very well off fathers just to pay their university fees.
I have met many men posing as boys, and my decision to delay is because I know that at the end of the day a man can revert back to a self obsessed teenager at any point.
Aged 25 and oh so jaded.
Re: Stop blaming women
posted by Marybel on 9 Feb 2012 at 11:12 amI completely agree! I waited to get married until I found the man I am completely comfortable with and love. Well, I married him at my 28 years of age. We were planning for children but now plans have changed... I still want kids and my husband wants to wait until he completes law school... 4 years! I feel like I could go crazy and have a fear o not being able to ever experience a pregnancy, labor and bringing a life into this world (is that selfish?).
My husband is thinking logically, wants a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and college savings that will entail a completely planned and wanted child... He says he'll be too
Stressed during the course of school. I get all of that but it still doesn't dismiss my fear of not having kids... I'll be 32 or 33 at most... :-(
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