Older Women Wanting Babies

Going on from your earlier thread Strawbs, the 53 year old kiddie fiddler wanting to have a baby with her teenage 'boyfriend' when there is a 33 year age gap between them is absolutely shocking. She is old enough to be his grannie.

There seems to be a trent among the rich and famous who are seeking fertility treatment to enhance their chances of having a baby in their 40's and although it is not entirely impossible to conceive after the age of 40, the chances of this are extremely slim, furthermore, the eggs of the woman are often inferior which of course is a fact given that women in their 20's usually have no trouble conceiving a baby.

It is a well documented fact that a woman usually follows in her own mother's footsteps with regards to when she will go through the menopause, and there are some women who have the menopause as early as 38 and the signs are changes in her monthly cycle, mood swings and irritability at unsucessful attempts to become pregnant which results in frustration and which inevitably makes the process of conceiving even more difficult.

I wonder what the medical profession thought when Julie turned up saying she wanted to get pregnant. She should be sectioned under the Mental Health Act or arrested for peodopillia.

Ruby

ffs....shell be an oap in about 6 years.....silly deluded moo.....she needs to be sectioned....her baby days are gone now...what the fook is she taking in her tea?.....

Hi Ruby,

I agree with you. There are some women who have babies in their early 40's, and besides being lucky to conceive in the first place, they're also very lucky to have an uncomplicated full-term pregnancy, and give birth to a healthy child. When that happens it really is a blessing. But for every one of those women who do have healthy babies - thousands don't. It's all on the Internet about the risks involved; the difficulty in conceiving, higher risk of miscarriage or baby born with Downs Syndrome or some other medical problem - so it isn't a walk in the park for most people.

The famous women you hear about who get pregnant in their 40's usually have IVF treatment (which has a very low success rate the older you are) or they use donated eggs, as their own eggs are often poor quality due to the age. Having said that, my grandmother had her last child when she was 42 - and there was no IVF around then! Years ago a lot of women would bear children from their early 20's (or younger) right through to their 40's. They'd have about a dozen children! Professor Winston said in one of his documentaries that if a woman's already had a child her chances of having another one when she's 40 is higher than for a woman whose never had one - but I've forgotten why that is. It doesn't make sense to me - but I'm sure he knows better than me! lol

Regarding the menopause - you're right. Daughters usually take after their mothers in that respect, and my mother was still having her periods when she died - although she must have been going through the menopause! My sister is the same, and I know that my aunts (my mum's sisters) all followed the same pattern and had a late menopause - which is possibly why they look young for their age - all those hormones still floating about......

It's quite rare to become menopausal, or even peri-menopausal in your late 30's - but it's not unheard of and does sometimes happen. In those cases you usually find that the woman's mother had an early menopause, too. So yes, there's definitely a genetic influence with regards menopause.

Strawbs

I'm a nurse, I worked in gynae for over 8 years and it was well known in medicine that women nearly always inherited the same menstrual timing as their mothers i.e. if their mother started their period at a certain age so did they and it followed suit with the onset of menopause. There are instances where ill health or trauma or certain medicines or lifestyle can bring on menopause earlier but women usually take after their mothers and start their periods/menopause at roughly the same age. 38 is a young age to start the menopause but it's by no means that rare and for some unexplained reason many women are becoming menopausal younger than even a decade ago. Some doctors attribute it to heavy drinking and lifestyle.