Are people trolling or do they just not understand basic biology?

[Tig44]

Just scrolling through fb and post comes up about egg donation, lots of replies from women in their mid to late 40s saying they would be interested in donating (despite the admin clearly replying that max age is 36) now don’t get me wrong, I myself had a baby in my early/mid 40s (natural conception) so I do know it is possible. However do these women not realise that just because they are still having periods (as some have stated) they are very unlikely to be fertile non the less chances of a healthy baby for couples accepting the eggs. Are many women really this ignorant?

Yes. Many women who have never suffered fertility issues just don’t know as much as women who have suffered years of infertility/IVF/ICSI etc as they have had no reason to look that deeply into it all. They just want to do something to help other women, which is nice of them really.

You don’t know what you don’t know!

I don't think replies on a Facebook post are generalisable to the wider population.

100% this. Why judge them? They want to help and do something nice. Sound like complete monsters to me 😂.

I think people see the trend for celebrities to have children at a much later age than in the past and forgt that they could well have paid thousands for multiple rounds of IVF or even a surrogate. They just see "older woman having babies" and assume that's what it's like for everyone.

A very few random people on the internet may not understand. Not a widespread problem is it.

I think frankly the population of people using facebook is largely 40s and up, not a lot of young women in their 20s on there, so of course, a Facebook ad is going to reach that demographic you’re describing. I also suspect that women who are past their own childbearing years probably feel a sense of, well, I don’t need them anymore so maybe I could help someone else. I know certainly in my 20s, I was too busy partying to be thinking about egg donation. 😂 In my 30s, I was busy having my own children.

I do think it’s oversimplifying things to say that all women in their 40s are past it reproductively though. I certainly know more women in their 40s with unplanned pregnancies than I do those struggling with infertility actually!

Its FB, the place where you can advertise a red fridge in Aberdeen and people will ask what colour it is and will you drop it off in Devon for £20 petrol money

They're just virtue signalling pretending they're such good people who would do something nobody wants them to do.

They're like people who would occasionally give a sandwich to a homeless guy but only if he'll post for the gram selfie to they can tell everyone they've done it

When they realise what egg donation actually involves, and the awful consequences/side effects, interest (even among the target age-group) drops right off.

It isn't like the wank-in-a-cup sperm donation involves.

People only know what they know 🤷‍♂️

Their hearts appear to be in the right place, 'ignorant' or not.

Oh gosh, this has reminded me of someone I used to work with. There were quite a few young women working in the office who would get asked about plans to have children. One day my colleague, who I think was 47-48, said she wasn't planning to have another baby. She was not being sarcastic

Yes wonder whether this was the cause as in my personal life i’ve only come across a handful of women past 42/43 who have had babies. I work in maternity care and it’s less common to see women who had their 1st at 38/39 back again for the second and sadly the few women we do see past 40 seem to have a much higher rate of miscarriage. The ones who have had IVF donor egg pregnancies even in their 50s seem to have as healthy pregnancies as anyone else (as it is all about the egg)
Just shocked people really think these celebrities are having natural conceptions and not realising most are frozen/donor eggs?

Just shocked people really think these celebrities are having natural conceptions and not realising most are frozen/donor eggs?

It's not something that I could get shocked about.

I'd just assume they didn't really give enough of a shit to think about it properly.

Some women seem to think as long as they are having regular periods that they are fertile and could have a baby if they so chose. That might be true but chances are much lower over 40 and much lower over 45 because egg quality declines (and also your natural immunity increases which can make your uterus less hospitable). If they had children younger without trouble they might never have given infertility/declining fertility a second thought.

Also it's worth mentioning that (i think) doctors prefer donors to have completed their own family first, in case there are complications. These days it's quite common for women to have their last child in late 30s or early 40s and wouldn't start thinking about donation earlier.

Ignorant isn’t always meant as an insult, yes absolutely very sweet of they genuinely wanted to help, just surprised at their ‘lack of awareness’

I find mumsnet fascinating when it comes to semantics, I could say I was ‘shocked’ to hear of the 75 year old mother of a friend helping them move house and wouldn’t think anything of it but I’m sure some people would take offence

Interesting, it just surprises me, we ended up having quite a big family (including baby in our forties) but each one felt like an absolute miracle. Statistically the chances of having a baby past 41/42 is very low and past 45 is minuscule. (People may know of the odd person that age having an unplanned pregnancy but low chance pregnancy would of progressed anyway) The HEFA don’t permit donation from women over 36 according to the admin, which from my professional experience seems an entirely sensible policy.
People still ask me and hubby if we’re going to have another baby (in mid- late forties) I honestly thought they were joking 🤦🏻‍♀️

That’s why I was asking?

Yeah but it's part of your job to know these things, so surely you can't be too shocked to realise when it's not part of someone else's, they might not know the same things as you?

I wonder if it is some women thinking that they can be the exception to the rule? We saw in 2020 and 2021 people ignoring rules in general, not just the man whose ability to father children is never in doubt.

You work in healthcare so of course you know more. I agree that celebrities having babies later has made it look like women in their 40s can have children easily.

This is exactly why healthcare needs to use simple language like woman rather than “person with cervix” - many people who speak English wouldn’t know if they had a cervix or prostate. Most people don’t have fertility treatment do wouldn’t have a clue what it’s like to go through egg retrieval and the probabilities that the eggs would lead to a living baby.

I’m not a fertility nurse so not strictly part of my job but yes of course would probably have a bit more awareness through case so see. However just thought it would be something most people would be aware of through general life experience, as said can’t think of many people I know personally who had naturally conceived babies in their 40s

I had years of fertility treatment and know of many women who have used donor eggs.

As such, I tend to be agog at the huge lack of reproductive literacy in the general population.

I would argue that celebs having babies and pretending they didn't have any intervention do not help this misinformation. I believe as a society we should be much more open about these things. (See also: silence around miscarriages).

Yes it would explain a lot if the women I see professionally maybe rarely disclose the issues they’ve had to others (just to caveat for the MNs who may take offence - I’m not saying anyone is obliged to, just commenting on how it skews people’s perceptions). Perhaps also would explain why my fellow contemporaries who work in maternity care found my own naturally conceived successful pregnancy in our 40s much more remarkable than our family/friends/acquaintances, who just keep asking if we’re having another (as if we could if we wanted to!)

Also probably doesn’t help that the media often talk about fertility cliff edges and the age of 35, although fertility does reduce from 35, trying to have a baby at 38 is astronomically more likely than at 46, we have loads of women successfully having naturally conceived healthy babies in their late 30s compared to it being virtually unheard of for us for women of 45