What age do you think is too old to have a baby?

[BabyLlamaZen]

I've seen a few threads related to this. What would you say is the cut off age for a woman specifically to be pregnant and have a baby? Or is there no cut of age - is it ok to have children in your 60s if medical advancement allows it?

This is such a tricky thing. I personally feel 45 maximum for actively trying, including medical help to do this.

My reasons I suppose are personal. Best friend was a surprise baby (parents aged 40 and 42). Reasonably healthy people but both no longer around. I know this is also unlucky that they both got cancer in their 70s, but also really not that strange. She's 30 and luckily had her children in her 20s so they got to meet them. She was so so worried about them being around for them, so it's it's that she almost knew. (She was also lucky meeting her husband early!)

My parents were mid 30s but I also lost one. Again, I know this can happen at any age, but it defintely increases chances as you get older. It was so painful to my siblings and I. I could never say to my remaining parent, but it's one of the reasons I had my son at 29.

I get that it's difficult having children young in current climates with finding a decent relationship, having a good job and the whole unaffordability of housing, but that's why people are having them mid 30s. Not mid 40s!

However, I know this may sound very unfair to those who have for whatever reason not been able to have children earlier. So really interested to see different views :)

Why does there have to be a cut off point? If you don't want kids past a certain age don't have them but why judge someone who does?

Life changes, things happen that no one could predict. No need to be an asshole about it.

@abnormalperson - I agree it’s so personal and I had a similar cut off at 30 before we started ttc at 29 (as soon as we got married). Every year of infertility (didn’t have my baby until I was 39) pushed that cut off back.

I had a wobble about it because I then realised after the birth (you tend to put off thinking about the future in IVF) that I might not be as active a grandparent as my mum is due to the age difference.

It took a lot of plainspeaking from my loved ones to make me realise that most Indian people my age have only one 60 something parent still alive and many of them can’t even get out of bed without help / half a dozen pills and that my parents (and family really) are unique. So if I take care of myself there is every chance I will be the sprightly and healthy 90-something grandmother my great-grandmothers were.

So now I am trying to just focus on my baby, producing a sibling (so he has a family when we are gone), and keeping myself healthy.

I think anything over 40 is too old.

45 I think . Personally I didnt want one over 35 but I had the choice .

Pregnant with my second at 28. I’m very glad to be getting the exhausting baby and toddler stages out of the way whilst I/we are young. And thrilled that they’ll be basically adults by the time I’m mid 40s and we’ll still be young enough to go traveling/have adventures/take part in stupid endurance sports and all the other stuff we love but might be taking a backseat for a bit.

But I completely appreciate that other people do it the other way around and that works well for them too. I do think by mid-late 40s you start taking a lot of health risks with pregnancy though.

@passthemustard I wasn't trying to be an arsehole. I was opening debate.

Interesting as many will see it as a moral issue, in which case you do care what others do. There was a recent case of a lady in India having twins in her late 60s. She also has health problems. Is that ok?

@babyllamazen

No absolutely not IMO. Weren't the babies very premature, and didnt she and her husband end up in intensive care? Or am I imagining it?

@GrumpyHoonMain I'm glad it's worked out for you in the end and agree it doesn't always happen when you expect, even if you started early.

@Wolfgirrl I'm pretty sure they were premature. I just remember how dangerous it was and how many doctors needed to be involved. It was like she suddenly wanted the fun of babies for a few years before she got too old but then would never deal with them when older :(

If I'm being brutally honest that is the issue with some first time older mums (40+). They get the best of both worlds, living it up for years before having kids then having children that will need to care for them before they are able to help with grandchildren etc. As previously mentioned they are more likely to just have one, which means the care is dependent on that one child.

It is different where they have a bunch of older siblings and the load is more likely to be shared (I say more likely as I'm all too aware this sometimes isnt the case).

Essentially it is saying my 'carefree' time means more to me than time with my children.

Increased risks genetically with older fathers too

I wish that was more widely recognised: the number of people I know who think only female fertility is affected by age is crazy.

Oh, FFS Wolfgirl.

What if they have spent many years actually earning the money to be able to house and feed a child without needing state benefits? Rather than living the high life, as you seem to imagine?

It is biologically normal to reproduce until the end of reproductive life. So offspring the world over lose parents while in their 30s and 40s - what is the big deal?

Have you noticed people staying fit and active longer and living longer, amidst your blinkered prejudices?

The majority of my NCT class were over 40 (natural conception) and the majority of them went on to have a further child.

If I'm being brutally honest that is the issue with some first time older mums (40+). They get the best of both worlds, living it up for years before having kids then having children that will need to care for them before they are able to help with grandchildren etc. As previously mentioned they are more likely to just have one, which means the care is dependent on that one child.

Essentially it is saying my 'carefree' time means more to me than time with my children.

There you go again with the dogmatic puritanism, plus a weirdly transactional attitude to the interaction of parents/children/ grandparents. Not everyone lives their lives according to your plan that you expect childcare from grandparents to whom you then 'owe' care. Are you speaking out of some deeply bitter personal experience that means you are unable to see that other people's lives operate differently, that we may live in different countries to our parents and have never relied on them for childcare while we still support them financially and emotionally, and have means and intelligence enough to set up our own old ages to leave our children free of the kind of grinding daily obligation you seem to see as inevitable?

And why does it horrify you so much that older mothers get what you term the best of both worlds? You sound weirdly envious of women who've had plenty of time to prioritise themselves, their careers etc before having a child, and sound like you're inventing some kind of deep-rooted ethical objection to it? It just sounds like a version of the hoary old 'childfree women are chilly careerist hedonists' stereotype.

They get the best of both worlds

Shouldn't this be something to celebrate? Women having a range of positive experiences which include the rewards and benefits of adult life without children and then later on the rewards and benefits of life with children? Later parenthood wasn't what I wanted but I find it oddly churlish to complain that those women who did it that way had it too bloody good!

Why does there have to be a cut off point?

Because the chances of serious illness and death increase as you get older and it's pretty shit to gamble with leaving a child without a parent. There is a good reason that women arent fertile into their 70s (and that not many young women fancy old men).

If I'm being brutally honest that is the issue with some first time older mums (40+). They get the best of both worlds, living it up for years before having kids then having children that will need to care for them before they are able to help with grandchildren etc. As previously mentioned they are more likely to just have one, which means the care is dependent on that one child.

Essentially it is saying my 'carefree' time means more to me than time with my children.

In your family it might be the norm for 60 yo people to be left with caring responsibilities for 80-90 year old parents but it isn’t in mine. That burden falls to grandchildren who become unpaid and unrecognised carers of grandparents (I know I was one).

It is far, far better to be a 30 to 40 year old carer of an 80 year old parent than a 60 year old one. You get more done, you are less tired, and to put it frankly you have more support than someone who has or is ready to retire.

In the case of the families where mums / grandmums all have kids in their 20s it’s often the 30-40 yo grandkids (and their very young kids) who end up caring for parents and grandparents. Within the Indian community this often means parents, grandparents, great-grandparents all living in one roof a la Bradford and Leicester. Which, again speaking from experience, is shit.

Lordy. So I can't state a simple biological fact but you can all say younger mums are on benefits, living off the state etc?

@ComeBy I don't know anybody that has needed to work for years and years to be able to own/buy a house/flat with 2 bedrooms and a few hundred quid for baby essentials. It is a bit of a myth, unless they're confident by not having kids it will accelerate them into earning life changing money, is it worth losing all that time with them?

Just because the majority of your class was over 40, it doesnt change the biological and statistical reality. It just makes it more normalised.

@Viragoesque it doesnt horrify me. This is a thread asking opinion, and I'm giving mine. Caring duties etc are not 'inevitable' but a lot more likely. Even if you can afford the best care your kids will have to visit you, help you out more, run your affairs, blah blah. It isnt transactional, it is family life. If you see it as a transaction you're doing it all wrong.

@Iwalkinmyclothing well yes it is something to celebrate for the mums not the kids, that's my point.

Lordy. So I can't state a simple biological fact but you can all say younger mums are on benefits, living off the state etc?

Nobody said that. Or if they did it might have been to counter your, frankly, hurtful and offensive comments. This isn’t the first thread where you have totally trashed older mums. Just because your ovaries and womb worked in your 20s and you found the right man (or men) to father your kids, it doesn’t mean you have the right to insult women for whom it didn’t work out. You aren’t stating facts at all - because the facts are that for healthy women fertility doesn’t drop off a cliff -edge and it is perfectly possible to fall pregnant right up to menopause.

And another fact is that the problem we have in society is that carers are getting older. It would be better for society as a whole if carers were 30-40 years old.

That's why I specifically said, I think it is completely understandable to have kids in your 40s if you don't meet the right person earlier in life. In fact I said it several times.

Because while I dont think it is ideal, I'm not crazy enough to think being born to parents in their 40s is a fate worse than death of course it isnt.

I am only talking about people who, say, get married and have a house by 30 but put off ttc until 39 or 40 purely because they want to enjoy their child free time.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying your child free time, but children aren't like getting a dog or building an extension. They are an enormous commitment and you have to think of what is best for them as well as yourself.

You aren’t stating facts at all - because the facts are that for healthy women fertility doesn’t drop off a cliff -edge and it is perfectly possible to fall pregnant right up to menopause FGS when did I say it was impossible to get preggers in your 40s? I said it was less likely which is true.

Men can father children until they die. Does that mean they should enjoy their children time and start thinking about babies in their 60s?

• child free time.

Someone asked what was the big deal about losing your parents in your 30s?

Could I ask you if you lost parents in your 30s? Was it a big deal?

People I know who experience this go through years of grief, fear of the future, loss of the idea of the future, possible emotional security.

It's a very very big deal. And deliberating creating a baby who will very probably experience this is selfish. It's about you, not the child.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying your child free time, but children aren't like getting a dog or building an extension. They are an enormous commitment and you have to think of what is best for them as well as yourself.

Literally no one in the history of parenting has ever said this. Thanks for this blisteringly acute insight.