Help! Justine's going on Channel5 News to talk about the mahoosive rise in the number of women giving birth in their 40s. Your thoughts on the reasons behind this increase would be most appreciated

Dh and I had to say to ourselves:
'Are we really mature enough and ready for this big change? We've had our fun and fulfilled a lot of our career aims. ..ish... Let's do it before it's too late and we are too knackered!'

I think not having any family around to support you can also be a factor. We saved and saved.
We were younger than 40 incidentally, but I know some friends were a bit the same.

Owlonstrings and Cokeaholic have got it spot on. It is harder and harder to meet a decent guy in your twenties or early thirties, especially one who wants to settle down and stop clubbing/ travelling/ shagging around/ enjoying himself basically. He'll be building up his career, saving for a mortgage (takes longer and longer to do), paying off his student debts (ditto). All this blaming career women annoys me. We need to work a million hours to afford a family home and we need to find the non-manchild straight vaguely acceptable guy-in-a-haystack who wants to settle down in his twenties or very early thirties for child number one. But apparently it's all our fault for ignoring our biological clock.

I also don't like the way the focus is on mothers in their 40s - surely that probably means a rise in fathers in their 40s too, noone comments on that.

I agree it's probably down to people (women AND men) taking longer to find the right person, wanting to be settled in their career/have enough money etc before settling down.

I was 27 when I had my first. I'm a bit jealous of some of the older mums I meet, they seem so sorted, in terms of they have had a career, have more money than we do, have become more 'established' in their career so have something to go back to. Whereas I had only had a 'proper' job for a couple of years before going on maternity leave and am now more or less starting again, and crippling myself with the childcare costs.

On the other hand I quite like the thought that when I'm in my 40s my kids will be teenagers!

I didn't meet the right man until I was 32 and we started trying for a baby straight away. A factor in late motherhood is the length of time it takes to get anything done if you need help. I waited just over 2 years before going to see my doctor (so I was 34/35), then I had to wait to be referred, wait whilst the clinic tried IUI first (which has an appalling success rate but is cheap), and then it took 3 rounds of IVF, first round miscarriage, second round unsuccessful, third round DD arrived 3 months before my 40th birthday. So from meeting right man to trying it took just shy of 8 years. I was lucky and had parents willing to pay for my final 2 rounds of IVF, if we'd had to save it would have taken even longer.

So for those like me that need help getting pregnant, even if we started at the age of 30 it wouldn't be until our late 30s or early 40s when we actually have a baby.

I suspect that women's education may also be something to do with it - how many women who have degrees or a fairly good idea of their chosen career path have children in their early 20s compared to those that don't? Is there a certain level of expectations of our life path built into when we have children?

I often wonder, reading such reports, whether it is generally known that men have anything to do with pregnancy at all.

I would have had babies earlier if I had met DH earlier. I had to kiss a lot of immature frogs who were scared of commitment before I found my prince.

It's nothing to do with careers (in my case at least), but it might be something to do with the crippling cost of housing and childcare as well.

I get heartily sick of the misogynist DM saying women are having babies later because they are putting their careers first. It's total bollocks.

I'd love to see a real article about how men won't commit because they don't want to be "tied down" in their 30s i.e when women's biological clocks are ticking loudly. That's largely what's at the heart of the matter.

Ha! Terrible grammar, but hopefully you get my gist :)

I am currently pregnant and shall be 48 when I give birth. I think the reasons for more women giving birth in their 40s are generally:

• because we can (with advances in fertility treatment)
• because more celebrities are having children later, which validates it for the rest of us
• because more people are getting married again after divorce, and starting new families
• because people don't age like they used to (I feel great this pregnancy, better than I did when i was pregnant in my 20s).

For me I'm TTC in my late 30s (2nd baby) as I didn't meet Mr Right till late.

I imagine the rise in house prices might have something to do with it. If people are focussed on earning enough to buy property, it takes so long these days to get a foot on the ladder and this may be having a knock on effect. In my parent's day, if you had a degree you got a good job, then could most likely afford a house. These days if it's important to you to own your own home before starting a family then you'll have to wait so much longer (obviously only talking about those for whom home ownership is a possibility!)

Also, there have been massive changes to the way we live, within living memory.

Way back when, people used to get a job for life, and - it seems from here anyway - that life was more structured. You got a job, then married, then started a family.

These days, people change jobs more often and have less job security, we also have more relationships - with marriage often not happening until after we've had DCs. We're more used to being consumers, and we're less religious. Perhaps that means that we're more used to the idea that we can have the power to exercise choice in our lives, which leads us to be picker about our partners, rather than marrying younger and then living with it to avoid the stigma of divorce (which of course is less of a stigma these days).

Women especially have more options open to us, and many of us don't feel we're expected to have DCs anymore, it may take a while to decide that actually you do want to. Especially when you realise it's now or never.

I think in some instances women feel they shouldn't want children "young" (ie in their 20s) as it's not seen as a sensible choice. I know quite a few women who have been hankering after children since 25 but who have hung on and on and on because they feel people will judge them and think they're boring and settled if they drop out of the young and carefree life "too early." When I had my DS at 27 I was surprised at how many friends of similar age expressed envy - that was the last thing I expected!

I think the idea that you have to hang on for quite a long time before getting married and having children can ruin a lot of good relationships as people find themselves drifting along stuck at the boyfriend/girlfriend stage when really they should be moving on starting a family and taking it to the next level so to speak. Without that next level I think a lot of otherwise very good relationships fizzle out as it can start to seem a bit pointless.

I also agree with other posters that it seems to be harder for people to find someone to marry and have children with these days. I have friends in their early 30s who have been single for years and years and who have given up on ever finding anyone. Chances are they will eventually meet someone but it might not be till they're 35/36 at which point it's likely they'll be near 40 before children arrive.

Agree with hecate

A generation of two ago most people were married by the age of 25 and started families pretty much straight away - it was just what you did.

Nowadays almost half the population is expected to go to university, maybe after a gap year, and so will graduate at age 23 or 24, bum around for another year or two until they eventually get a career type job, and finally have the money to enjoy a pretty self-indulgent lifestyle, which is quite hard to give up, throughout the rest of their 20s and early 30s. It's only then I think that people actually start to think they would maybe prefer to settle down with someone, rather than go out, party, go on exotic holidays, meet shag various different people etc etc.

Basically men and women are simply taking longer to grow up - probably becuase life these days is far more materialistic and self indulgent (I want x and I want it now!) that it ever was.

I like to think that it could also be that women in their 40s are having more sex.

I'm 40 and have an 8 week old and while I've been chatting to other older mums it's come up that quite a few of our pregnancies have been a surprise rather than planned.

I am worried they are going to have someone else on with her, like that Katie Hopkins nightmare.

i would have thought it was more to do with education and opportunities. now it's quite rare to find girls who leave school with no idea of what they would like to do and no 'plan' most of the women i know having kids have been older - i suppose they want to have a career that they can go back to rather than start a career later in life

i wouldn't blame men but maybe some women have expectations from men that are a bit unrealisitic

you can delete me if you like. We can pretend I said something outrageously rude to you. you can faint and everything

It's Chaos. We were on a thread and she said I had my harsh pants on.

And I thought - I like that name.

Blamed? I didn't realise it was about blame. Is it? I thought it was just, well, a fact. With no blame attached. No Oh you bad bad women waiting to have children sort of thing. Is there? Blame, I mean? Because that would be a very interesting thing to raise as well.

Harsh posts? have I been harsh?

Yes, there's the career women stuff bandied around, women being blamed for the rise in in numbers giving birth over 40.

However, amongst my peers many of us would have happily taken time off from careers earlier if only we'd been able to settle down with a suitable partner earlier.

It makes my teeth itch that women are being blamed for this rise when lots of women would love to have settled down with a suitable man and started a family 5 or 10 years earlier than they actually did but many men these days are not ready for that commitment and end relationships with women who are ready, causing them both to start the search for a suitable partner all over again.

Part of the cause in my opinion (and experience) is the rise in the numbers of the "man-child" who wants to have relationships with women but not to settle down to starting a family (as that is when hard work comes into the relationship) and it becomes less fun-based.

Men are far more responsible for the rise in numbers of women giving birth in their 40's, than women are.

Yes to all the reasons given above.

Can I just add a little something though? I am 43 and mum to a 4year old. I'd like to throw in the mix that it can be quite hard in-so-far-as I'd lived my own life for a good 15+ years, carving a career, holidays/weekends away whenever I wanted, able to go to the loo without a little follower (!) etc. The change in lifestyle was a MASSIVE shock. Not saying it isn't equally a shock for a younger mum, but that I'd had more to miss if that makes sense??

OH JANE - when is she on? what day/time?

I don't want to miss it.

My partner when I was in my twenties wasn't someone I would have had children with, for various reasons; I didn't feel a massive amount of pressure to have kids then either (eg to dump him and find someone else I could have kids with or anything). Overall I was quite happy to be childless and footloose (took opportunities to work abroad and suchlike) for quite a few years; in my later 30s did internet dating and didn't want to rule kids out, but was of course aware of declining fertility etc. Once with DP, we gave it a go but would have been fine with the result of not having kids if that's how it had happened.