for thinking that a woman who is about to turn 60 shouldn't be asking for IVF?

[Coldhands]

Ok I may get really flamed for this, but I have just read a story that a woman who is 60 this year had asked a Harley St doctor for IVF.

Should she get this? I have no problem with IVF, we came very very close to having it ourselves but I think that women go through the menopause for a reason. Older bodies are just not equipped to do the while pregnancy thing etc. Do you really want to be 70 when your child is 10? I know women have had it abroad even older than this, but one of them recently died of cancer and left her 1/2? year old twins behind after having IVF in her late 60s. I just think it is very irresponsible.

It is a shame if they have never had children for whatever reason (if they wanted them), but it just seems 'a bit wrong' (not quite sure how to out that last bit).

Skidoodle no not really, I have older parents my mum was in her 40's when she had me and dad in his 50's, I am an only child, though my dad has children from his first marriage old enough to be my parents. I hated it, my dad died of cancer 21 years ago and though i love my mum dearly i do worry about her as she is older than parents of people my age and the responsibility does fall on my shoulders if anything does happen plus i have a young family too. Imagine how the child of this woman will feel later on if she is alive having extra worries that personally they should not have to worry about at such young age or if the mother is not alive to see them grow up, get married and have their own children. I am just saying this from my own personal feelings and expeirence of having older than average parents. My dad if he were alive would be in his 80's

I know that illness and disability can happen at anytime and any age but as you grow older the likelihood increases.

Totally agree MadamDeathstare.

'The reason average life expectancy for women was low until recently were twofold: a significant percentage of people died before the age of 5. A further significant percentage of females died as young adults giving birth to a first child.

Live beyond that, and epidemiologically, you stood a good chance of living to a relatively old age.'

I don't know where you have got that from !
Even when the skewing effects of child mortality is taken out of the equation medieval women usually died at 35-40.they had to work so hard on a poor diet ,let alone disease finished most women off before they were 40

Documentary on radio 4 suggested that the 'natural selection' reason for menopause wasthat it happened at the optimum time for daughters to have children and for grandmothers to pass on knowledge and help with childcare without her own to worry about so much.

Also, I thought menopause was caused when the eggs ran out.... surely not a glitch but that this was the optimum number as female would probably have died before veing able to care for young...

However.

Am prochoice- she can do what she wants. Should NHS pay for it? Hmmmmmm...? Personally I would say no unless circumstances have prevented her from conceiving in her 'normal child baring age'.

Me -I;m knackered and I'm 29!. My Mum is hyper yet tells me she couldn;t cope with DD for longer than a few nights so hmm. Pregnancy i very stressful and tiring on body as is giving birth etc etc

In answer to OP.

I don;t think 60 year old is unreasonable or wrong for asking for IVF. However I think those she asks should say no.

'I don't know where you have got that from !'

A PhD course.

expatinscotland
best comeback ever

Fantastic expatinscotland!

A PhD course in what?

I think it ethically wrong too Riven-there should be some things that money can't buy.

It would be better to help support an eastern European woman and be an honorary Grandma IMO.

The thing that I keep on thinking about this issue is that say for example you have a woman (healthy) in her 40s who has never had children. Should she be denied having a child because of her age (if she could become pregnant successfully)? Some people don't meet the right person until late in life even though they may want the conventional family set up. I know this is a slightly different question but some of the complications / problems could still be there at this age.

Logically I think actually think 60 is too old o have a child. On the other hand though, which is worse a 16 year old who never wanted the child to begin with or a 60 year old who will love the child.

I haven't read all the posts but what strikes me is there was a relationships thread a while back when everyone was saying it was allokay for partner of 55 ( male) to father children with a younger wife.

Why the double standards?

In this case, the woman in question is married to aman 11 years her junior- so he is 49. The child will have 1 parent who is not regarded as "old".

From a medical view point, if the drs think her body can carry a child, then why not? The oldest recorded natural birth is on a woman aged 56- not too far off 59 which this woman is now.

Women have a menopause when they do as life expectancy was always around 45-50 for millions of years. It is only recently that medical progress has meant we all can live longer.One reason women take HRT is to try to keep their bodies functioning beyond the menopause and stop various life threatening illnesses such as osteoporosis.

Ithink UABU. Lots o f people are unable to bring up a child in ideal circumstances- feckless teenagers, women whose children are all by different partners, and so on. What is wrong with a mature loving married couple having a child?

expatinscotland is right (no Phd but a degree in social history covering this topic). Life expectancy rates prior to the 20th century were hugely skewed for

1, Infant mortality

1. Maternal mortality
2. Impact of wars (men mainly)

If you survived all that, you had a good chance of living at least into your 60's. Of course, modern medicine is now extending that further.

Arguably, nutrition (other than the impact of "spoilt" foods, hasn't had that much impact on mortality rates, although it has on height and diseases like rickets, scurvy etc)

In medieval European studies, Dueling.

'Is it just me wondering about poor eastern european women becoming an egg industry for wealthy elderly western women?'

No, it's not, Riven. But apparently they are here to serve the ends of Western women with money to get whatever it is they desire.

Their health and the desperate poverty that drives them to inject themselves with synthetic hormones and undergo painful medical procedures to sell their body parts to the highest bidder because of the accursed ethics of UK fertility clinics (how dare they forbid 60-year-olds from having IVF! Everyone has an inaliable right to reproduce however they see fit, whenever they see fit, as long as they've got the money for it!) is secondary.

Hmmm. I can't quite put my finger on it but I'm still not comfortable with there being a cut off point beyond which women are not allowed to conceive. The menopause argument doesn't quite cut it for me, perhaps because it is so variable. I particularly dislike the idea that menopause is there "for a reason" - what if it happens relatively early?

I am concerned about dangers to egg donors. But age doesn't really come into that for me; I'm not sure that I'm entirely comfortable with the idea of egg donation fullstop where there is any trade off involved. Although I have to admit that I'm fairly ignorant of the risks, it seems to me that there is a great deal of scope for exploitation - regardless of the age of the recipient.

"yup. Or adopt one of the many many disabled children needing loving homes. "

Adoption is not always the answer to infertility. Or to the menopause. Just thought I would mention it.

Also haven't read the thread - at work and shouldn't be here!

I do think 60 is too old to be giving birth to children and bringing up babies. Quite apart from anything else it's completely knackering . But what I really object to, as I see one pp has raised, is the double standard regarding older men fathering children. In this day and age where we appreciate that both parents have a part to play in raising a child, it is equalling important that the father is around. Therefore, applauding the likes of Des O'Connor becoming a father at 72 is not on.

And I don't buy the biological argument. That's all very well but we no longer live in caves.

I think we have the menopause because our bodies are no longer fit enough carry a child, provide proper nutrients etc. There is a cut-off point for women and not for men because mother nature understands the sheer effort involved in what women's bodies do. Older women (past menopausal age, 45 or so) who receive IVF are unlikely to deliver the child naturally. I, personally, think its wrong for a woman who has gone through menopause to receive IVF. I find the whole
industry strange and I don't think its in women's favour at all.
I read that donor eggs are in short supply, so women receive subsidised IVF treatment if they agree to having their eggs harvested for other women (effectively selling their eggs). In other countries egg-selling is much more blatant. Rich women buying poor women's body tissue. Its just a big money-making business.
This has never been about women, its always been about the scientists wanting to prove they can get a baby out of any body, the older the better.
I think that young women who are infertile should get first refusal of those spare eggs. Older women should accept they've missed the boat.

I have no problem at all with older men fathering children. We don't live in caves, but mothers still give birth and breastfeed. A man of any age can have sex and die the next day and the child will still be born. If a woman dies the baby dies with her. What I am saying is how can you compare a man and woman's role in reproduction? How can you belittle and diminish what women do biologically by comparing it in any way with what men do (merely have sex). There is no equality (and who would want there to be?). To suggest there should be is madness.

But we're not talking about the biological side of reproduction here, are we? The woman in question is apparently fit and healthy, she feels herself to be physically able to bear a child. So that part we can assume, is taken care of. What people are debating is the life of that child once it is born to a woman of 60. That's where men and women are able to do the same job.

But we're not talking about the biological side of reproduction here, are we?

How can we exclude that part of the equation when the person needs donated eggs and major medical intervention (to artificially get her body out of its menopausal state AND prepare it for conception, in which case, the protocol for this individual will be different from a person whose ovaries are still functioning in a pre-menopausal state) to conceive?

A man that age who fathers a child does so without intervention (bar those who've perhaps had vasectomy reversal).

Biologically, however fortunately or unfortunately, men cannot fall pregnant and can father children for longer than women.

It's just a fundamental difference that won't ever go away.