to get really wound up by the term 'delayed motherhood'

[hairyfairylights]

and other such older-woman-who-has-not-yet-had-children bashing?

It was one of the things the BBC said was responsible for the rise in Breast Cancer.

More to beat women up with, and more to beat older women up with?

Propoganda because the nation will need more children to pay our pensions in the future?

For the record, I have not tried to have children until the last year, and I am in my early forties.

It doesn't mean I have delayed them or put my career first on purpose.

I just feel really got at when I see all those headlines about 'women who put their career before children are compromising their fertility' shite.

Not every woman who is trying for children at a later stage has deliberately 'delayed'.

(and boy do I wish I'd met the right man earlier and had had children earlier, but my life didn't work out like that. So I don't want to feel got at about it, as well as shit that I'm having trouble holding on to pregnancies).

Just a wee point, unsure of how relevant. Being able to conceive does not equal being able to have a child.

And I'm still kind of battling with this use of language myself.

The media almost always says 'women who dealy having children to have a career'. That's the bit that really, really gets to me, because that's not always the reason, is it!

It's almost as if society rolls it's eyes at women that they assume 'want to have it all'.

I also know PLENTY of very senior career women who have children too.

A 'high profile' friend of mine had a child at 16, still did her A levels, went to university, got a really good job and progressed from there.

But Duchesse, all that does is let you know that when you were in your 20s and 30s you were fertile, so have no additional (i.e in additional to age) challenges to fertility. I can't see that having a child earlier improves your chance of having a child later! Presumably you struggled to conceive a 4th child because of your age, not because of your previous happy fecundity.

As it happens, I conceived a first child at 42 first go.

well there is a theory that having a child makes you more fertile, but I have no idea if this has any basis in fact.

veggie- by the time you reach your 40s, the people who have already had babies have already been eliminated from the pool of people with fertility problems that may prevent them from having babies at all, whereas those trying for a 1st near 40 are still in that pool. It may be that many women who have children earlier never elect to ttc near 40 or to have a 3rd or subsequent child, so would never present with fertility problems. Quite a few of 40yo would have no fertility problems anyway, despite being older than when they had their previous children. So in the first time stats at 40 are people who would have fertility problems even if they'd tried earlier + people who have developed fertility problems, which in a far smaller overall group makes the chance of fertility problems that much higher. Whether it is a highly statistically significant difference remains to be seen.

Statistically, looking at the whole pool, yes - but for an individual woman, surely if she was ever going to be able to conceive at 40 then it makes no difference whether she also conceived at 20.

So the chances for the individual woman are not altered: she will find out at 40 that she has additional fertility issues, rather than at 30, and the fact that she has not had a child at 30 will not increase her potential fertility at 40.

I should probably step away from this one but I woke up at 5 this morning still thinking about it.

My emotional response is to feel upset by the comment the woman I heard on radio 4 make. She said 'women choose to delay' not just 'women delay'. I find this upsetting as I have sub-fertility (no children), my sister in law has no children as she never met anyone, and a colleague at work with no children (no partner) has breast cancer.

I think my emotional response also has a logical basis though. The study showed a statistical link within a population. So, what the woman should have limited herself to saying is (1) that the average age at which women have their first child has risen (true) and (2) that this explains some of the increased incidence (also true). As far as I know this study did not include in it's scope any investigation in to why the average age has gone up. Are women choosing? For all we know there could be more infertility problems at a younger age - whatever, the point is that the study didn't investigate this so she should have limited her comments to what it actually did look at. The 'choose to delay' is therefore speculative and that is why it sounds judgmental and it is offensive to me. On the second point, average age to have first child may explain variation in a data set of a given population but for an individual it will neither prevent breast cancer nor make it inevitable. So it's hardly helpful health advice is it? Age of first born is simply a risk factor and the emphasis it has been given and the attention it has attracted has eclipsed the other risk factors. Personally, I would rather have been told how much of the variation in the data set was explained by the factor of 'age to have first child' compared to other risk factors that are perhaps more within my control. It may also have been interesting, if the study was going beyond the data it looked at, to contrast the risk of not having children or having children in later life vs. risks that child birth exposes you to.

So that's why I object to the phrase 'choose to delay motherhood' used in this context. The age at which women have children is a whole different debate. I think some people who have posted here have a pretty black and white view of what choice means. If you are in a secure relationship then the risk of having a child is low, if you are not then the risk is high. Yes, you may have a choice, but the risk is different as is what is within your control. It is frankly ridiculous and irresponsible to make out that someone who is single and hasn't paid for donor sperm or gone out for a one night stand or settled for a relationship with an unsuitable man has 'made a choice' to remain childless. If you have lived a charmed life with lots of lower risk choices then good for you but try to have a bit more empathy for those who have had more limited or extreme options. I actually read the comments section on the Daily Wail shortly after I heard the radio 4 woman, and the comments there were more empathetic of the complexity of life than many on here.

BTW OP (in case I've not made myself clear) YANBU