Can you get pregnant at 52?

The first was mine, I started it last night - I did think when I read this, have I started a trend

Thank you, that makes sense. It really is a rarity and people don't always understand why.

Ovulation pain and hormone tests aren't a fail-safe way of knowing what you are ovulating, though. At this age it could easily be an empty shell (or you could be getting twinges you associate with ovulation that are to do with other womb-lining changes).

At 52 it's not impossible to get pregnant naturally, but the chances of not miscarrying are very low. I research pregnancy loss in history, and there are documented examples of women who continued to get pregnant into their late 40s and early 50s, but very often they simply kept miscarrying. By that age women who're still having regular periods are unlikely to have chromosomally normal eggs, and it's that that leads to a miscarriage.

(I'm posting because I do get very sick of the whole 'ooh I had regular periods at that age so def could have got pregnant' thing, which is really ill-informed and unhelpful.)

Improbable but not impossible. My friend was pregnant naturally at 56. She did not proceed with the pregnancy

The chances after late 40’s are considerably smaller than a woman in her 20’s on the most reliable contraception.

My gran conceived naturally at 50 but was still getting periods, I'd be surprised if you could conceive years after your last period though 🤷‍♀️

Yes, bringing it to term with a healthy baby is a whole other thing.

I know every time I see thread like this
It's the same
Even if someone did fall pregnant naturally at 52 the chances of having a successful pregnancy must be minimal.

It’s a funny thing, if a poster said she was considering starting ttc at 52 she’d be told she had zero chance, but someone of the same age wondering if she could get pregnant accidentally and all the stories of 50+ pregnancies come rolling out.

I diunt there would be any need for cover ups now nobody has to continue with a pregnancy for one thing
And if they choose too there isn't the stigma that there was in generations past.

This! ^

@Pregnantposibility

Of course you won't get pregnant at 52, with no sign of a period for two and a half years ... Despite some stories you see on MN of someone's great gran, or great aunt Fifi having 2 babies in their mid 50s - pre 1970s! (And everyone knows it was their daughter's baby(s.)

.

Yes, almost certainly.

I would say there was a high chance of fertility treatment in that scenario.

Absolutely. It was an absolute rarity because of the nature of maternal care at the time. It's only a bit more common now because of IVF etc.
I've known 2 people who believed their grandmother to have been their mother, when in fact the mother was the "sister" who had the baby as a teen.
Both people now in their late 60s.

There's much less 'need' for it as such.

Simply because it's not uncommon or unacceptable to be a single mother. Certainly it's not going to put off potential 'respectable' suitors.

We don't have conversations about young women 'being left on the shelf' nor the complications of being unable to have a bank account or legally unable to own property. Where you have unmarried daughters there is a tendency for them to be the eldest and have helped raise siblings and then effectively end up 'aging out' of the dating pool - they weren't regarded as 'useful' due to their age, so we're not going to produce the desired offspring.

You have to see it through the lens of a father or brother being responsible for his daughter until she married and there being massive financial insecurity for women who weren't married because pay was so much lower for women. Marriage was viewed as long term economic support for a woman. Parents wanted to marry off daughters so they would be looked after after they'd died - being seen as 'loose' restricted options as it made a girl 'less desirable'.

By the same token you see women who are suddenly widowed at a young age either remarrying very quickly (usually to a widower with children - to the point that it almost look transactional and arranged so he gained a hand to look after his children whilst she regained financial stability) or falling into abject poverty very very quickly.

It was rare for women to have financial independence unless widowed and/or left with a good inheritance or pension. It just doesn't happen because women couldn't do things like own businesses unless widowed.

The exceptions to this are few and far between.

I have a couple of entrepreneurial women in my family - both had businesses of their own but both needed a man for the paperwork.

I think we take this for granted to a large extent in 2025.

I'm guessing the cover ups are less common now?

Genuinely every single time I've seen it and raised an eyebrow at the mothers age on the census compared with when her 'child' was born you see the same thing; when you dig deeper and try and track the child's birth on the GRO indexes it comes back as a birth outside marriage (so family name but no maiden name).

I tend to double check census and birth records when I'm trying to trace down family lines to DNA matches and it is surprisingly common. The other thing you often get is on an earlier census the child is referred to as 'son' or 'daughter' and then the next one ten years later you see them referred to as grandchild. Usually after the daughter has subsequently married.

There most definitely WASN'T many women having babies after 50. It just didn't happen.

It only is happening now due to interventions.

They're probably just covering themselves.
The responses here say that you are NOT pregnant. It sounds like you need to take a test anyway to reassure yourself.

Ovulation pain and hormone tests.

They always say that though op. It's one of my first memories after the birth of each of my dc: I had hardly glanced at the baby before some midwife or other would come running in shouting "You realise you can STILL get pregnant even breastfeeding!!!"

Which is true but they seemed to have a fixation with saying it.

Then my mum would arrive to see the baby and say the same thing. And all I could think is how frisky do you all think |I'm actually feeling right now in this state.

I can feel in my cramping. Not the exact moment as some can, but the day.

I'd never thought of that as teen pregnancy cover-up. But I suppose that must have happened on a few occasions.

Oh for goodness sake! The world is getting too ridiculous for words.

I wish he'd said yes.

That sounds like IVF though. You couldn't accidentally pull off that many pregnancies in a row - having avoided it until then, surely.

No period in 2.5 years? YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT.

My Aunt is an OBGYN with 35+ years experience and the oldest Mum she's delivered a baby with was 49. Again, that's after 35 years.

You always get people saying my granny had one at 54 etc but really, it is vanishingly rare. Like, almost non-existent.