"a rather worrying trend of births to [older] women"

[TheFourYearOldDrankAllTheMilk]

So say "experts" quoted by the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/11/more-than-half-of-uk-births-now-involve-medical-intervention-audit-finds

What a crock of nonsense. Women have been having babies into their forties since God was a lad. That there are more interventions is down to doctors getting involved where a midwife wouldn't.

Just to give myself as an example. So far this pregnancy I've been told I am high risk because I have

Rhumatoid arthritis (I don't and never have, so that came as a surprise)
Had a small baby (previous kid was 7lb 7)
High blood pressure (BP is consistently 117/75 or thereabouts)
Liver disease (news to me)
Obesity (bmi of 30.3. Not exactly in the Roly Polies, to be fair)

And that I am old. I'm 41.

I live in an area with no midwife-led unit within a sensible distance (it was closed down; I understand it failed some inspections) so there will be doctors nearby when I give birth, and I'm not a hippy so if I do require intervention I will accept it, but they have been trying to book me in for an induction since I was barely mid-way through this pregnancy.

I am immensely grateful that the doctors are keeping an eye on me, but honestly it has taken some sorting out of all of the mistakes on my record.

Now, to read an article that lazily quotes "experts" and informs the public that British mothers are struggling with an unassisted, vaginal birth because they are old and fat is a slap in the face. Perhaps what they ought to be doing is writing articles encouraging women to empower themselves against intervention, like extolling the virtues of practices such as perineal preparation. [Buy an Epi-no, ladies, do it!]

I won't even comment on the fact that the journalist, described as their health policy editor, no less, feels the need to clarify that a caesarean section is a birth "in which the baby is delivered during an operation". OK, yes I will. Who exactly has this article been written for, four year olds‽

Already women in the west are pushed towards delaying or not having children, largely because of the need to establish a career to pay for the massive jump in house prices compared to even as recently as the 1990s. Let's make them feel even more shit about themselves if they dare to have a child over the age of 40.

Please do better, The Guardian.

The message i took from the article is they would like better care in earlier pregnancy. I think this is a good thing.

I had my children at 37, 41 and 43, so I have nothing at all against older mothers. But it’s a fact backed by medical research that being older does increase risk in pregnancy and labour.

Doctors intervene and are risk adverse because they want the best outcome for mother and baby, not because they like doing it for laughs. And I for one am so grateful for these interventions which meant my daughter and I are healthy and well today. I still shudder to think what would have happened had we been left in the hands of one of these non interventionist midwives.

I’m sorry that your hospital made so many mistakes in your care by the way. I was never wrongly classed as high risk in any of my three pregnancies. I was medium risk for all three despite age, a heart condition and, for the last two pregnancies, a history of post partum haemorrhage and suspected placental abruption in labour.

But isn’t this just science? There are more risks, that’s not just an opinion.

"Obesity (bmi of 30.3. Not exactly in the Roly Polies, to be fair)
And that I am old. I'm 41."

But it seems that you are obese and an older mother.

The enormous variation in stats between hospitals with statistical similar intakes tells its own story of variation in clinical practices. By the time you compare the c section sir intervention rates between countries it gets uncomfortable. My MW sister says she has never seen such high rates of perineal trauma and c section births - looking at the stats for my local trust I am sure that’s true here too. But to say that c sections are bad but they reflect a trend and the higher rates say more about culture than safety.

the rise in obesity has meant an increase in gestational diabetes which can have very serious implications, so I would understand why there may be more medical intervention stemming from that alone. And older mothers are of course more at risk. I’m 10 years younger than you and not overweight and feel beyond knackered after two births, would it not stand to reason you might benefit from more monitoring?

I wonder why nobody ever seems to mention declining fertility rates. I would assume first time mothers' births are typically more difficult and require more interventions than subsequent births. So if women on average are having fewer babies, it would make sense that an increasingly larger proportion of births are to first time mothers. This would be another reason why the rates of intervention are going up.

I had my first baby at 26, my last at 40. My first pregnancy was the most difficult with pre-eclampsia, induction, assisted delivery, although all three of mine were assisted or c-section.

I also think a lot of hospitals jump to medical intervention too quickly. I've had friends pressured into induction but didn't feel comfortable saying no, when they didn't want it - and induction significantly increases the chance of needing an assisted delivery or c-section.

In my experience, it’s crappy midwife-led care that leads to interventions. I wish I’d just gone straight to the proper bit of the hospital where they weren’t going to try to help me with aromatherapy, personally. I wish they’d listened to me in the first place. But they didn’t, and I get the have the lasting after effects, and I also had a C-section with my second to avoid having them in charge of the process.

This. I had two elective c sections because there was no way I wanted to have a midwife led delivery and rely on the midwives to bring in a doctor at the correct time, having read of the numerous maternity scandals, knowing the general state of the NHS and having experienced the standard of care provided by the midwives at my hospital first hand during my pregnancies.

I don’t know why you think that women have been having babies in their forties “since God was a lad”. This is simply not true - the trend for later motherhood is a recent one.
And as a previous poster said, your bmi is in the obese range, and 41 is considered an older mother.
where is the proof that midwife-led births are better for women? Less intervention does not automatically mean better.

Of course women have had babies in their 40s forever. It's having your FIRST baby in your 40s that's more common in present times.

Not sure it's comparing like with like either. Women may be heavier but nutrition and nedical care are better.

The trend for later first time motherhood is recent. Before contraception women would start having kids when they got married and stop at menopause.

Unless they died in childbirth of course.

Given the current situation in maternity services, and given the fact that both obesity and higher age are objective factors increasing risk to baby and mother, if a doctor said to me that they thought I should have a c-section, I’d bloody well take it.

A multidisciplinary team is vital in all healthcare but it is too common in reports into maternity disasters that a hostile relationship exists between midwives and doctors. Nothing is more detrimental to safe outcomes and a midwife who doesn’t like doctors getting involved is unsafe to practice imo.

With respect, the trend for having babies in your 40s is not a recent one. How on earth could it be? Not that long ago reliable, available contraception didn't exist. Do you think in days of yore women all stopped having sex once they reached 40?

It's the trend for first babies in your 40s which is a more recent phenomenon.

Well I had my first baby aged 30, I was not obesse but I did end up with an assisted delivery in theatre which I fully blame on a totally overwhelmed labour ward and being left in a room for 24 hours having been given diamorphine and absolutely not guidance on why my labour was progressing slowly or what I could do about it. Had there been a midwife who'd had the time to explain that my baby had turned back to back and I needed to get in better positions to help then perhaps things would've progressed better. This was 16 years ago and my experience was nothing like the lovely supported births I'd been sat at home watching on 'One born every minute'. The midwives were grumpy, rude, dismissive (no doubt overworked) and couldn't even be bothered to check on me. Similarly shit post natal experience which left me bordering on pnd and utter exhausting. In the end (3 days on the ward) I discharged myself and went home for some sleep so I could recover from what felt like a car crash.

I agree. I deliberately opted for the labour ward with my first. It’s lucky I did because I was monitored properly and when things started to go awry it was picked up immediately. We were already in theatre and my daughter was out by the time I had a massive PPH. The doctor later said I was probably having a placental abruption. I feel lucky that I was where I was and had prompt medical intervention. My two younger children were born by ELCS.

I did NCT in my first pregnancy and the teacher was extolling the virtues of midwife led births and telling us how “if you as much as see a doctor coming into the room, your oxytocin levels will drop and YOUR LABOUR WILL STALL!!”. I remember when the - very nice, mild mannered - doctor did come into the delivery suite. I was so relieved to see him, but also chuckling to myself. The poor man had no idea he was supposed to be the bogey man!

You are obese and older. Both of those are statistically risk factors for greater intervention at birth. It may not turn out to be true for you as an individual, but that’s the way stats work.

Same. And surely we all know that being older and overweight causes more
problems?

I agree it’s a lot of first babies and first
babies are generally more difficult,
so a first labour in your 40s is a very different to the women who have had many easy labours since their 20s and continued in their 40s. There would have been a number of women who had terrible births in their 20s and either died/had complications which meant they never had children in their 40s. Those same women today would start in their 40s and struggle even more.
And a lot of women struggle to conceive naturally in their 40s so you have to take into account all those having babies when naturally their bodies wouldnt.

You don’t need to be offended by science op. Best of luck with your pregnancy and birth.

I agree.
Also a lot of women are traumatised by birth and being pushed to do absolutely everything else before c section.

My consultant said it’s not having a baby over 40 that’s the issue (if it’s your second or third or fourth) it’s having your first baby over 40 that’s riskier because it’s the first time your body goes through pregnancy, childbirth and labour. Apparently all of which are statistically easier for subsequent births on the whole

Right, and the article doesn't clarify whether they are referring to first or subsequent babies.

But mothers over a certain age will automatically be under an obstetrician rather than a midwife won't they?

Not necessarily. Age only put me at medium risk (I was over 40 for 2 or my 3 pregnancies), and that wasn’t consultant led. I saw a consultant as part of a joint cardiology/ obstetrics clinic because I have a congenital heart condition, but otherwise I usually saw a hospital midwife.