Good news for older mums

[KiwiKat]

More women over 40 having babies than ever before

"More and more Britons are delaying motherhood following the rise in women enjoying well-paid careers"

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Title doesn't match topic. Not good news - not even news - and now I've been and gone and had to look at the Daily Mail and I'm all upset and angry going to bed.

All the most thumbs-upped comments are talking sense though.

I love how with articles like this they never mention the role of men and the fact that

a) loads of MEN put off having kids with their similarly-aged partners because they can't afford it/prefer to wait

b) men's sperm declines in quality due to age in the same way women's eggs do. But no man wants to be told his spunk is no good, they just go 'oh but look at John Humphries' etc.

Good on them! I did it twice - and it is great. No worries about career - because I have got where I want to be. Now, leave us older wonderful mother alone (with our gorgeous children, who we bring up excellently) - the comments people make on the Daily Mail comments page are so vile....of course.

Didn't get that far down, Secunda. Had to leave because the grammatical mistakes and bad spelling were excerbating my eczema.

exacerbating typo not spelling, honest.

Serves me right for not reading it properly - I was excited because I thought it was saying that they were ABLE to have more babies later in life, which is good for those of us who have been trying. Am suitably chastised ...

Serves me right for not reading it properly - I was excited because I thought it was saying that they were ABLE to have more babies later in life, which is good for those of us who have been trying. Am suitably chastised ...

Wasn't meaning to chastise you! I just meant Daily Mail making a big old stinky fuss about women having babies later because it's not right and what are they doing choosing for heaven's sake and having jobs and brains and it's just not right country's going to the dogs blah blah.
I had mine at 35 and 39, for exactly the reasons quoted in the article. Like loads of women on here.

And adding insult to injury, double posting!

Gawd - the DM excells yet again in aiming for most misogynist newspaper of the year award.........

I had my first at 40 and am having my second at 44, after trying FOREVER. Which is why I was so excited, because I thought the piece was saying "it's now easier for old broads to have babies". I really must learn to read with more attention before bursting into print ...

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/26/over-40-women-mothers-pregnancy

A sensible perspective at last.

Some of the comments are just awful though.

What gets me is that the numbers of women shown to have given birth in their 40s doesn't indicate the numbers who conceived naturally - and a great many do. Even in my grandmothers generation women were having babies in their 40s, probably due to a lack of good contraception!

Yes there are risks but there are risks in every pregnancy and age is one variable as is weight, other problems, smoking etc.

God - if you get pregnant in your 40s, isn't your body telling you....well yes you can get pregnant! There you go!

It always has to be made into some ideological issue when it really is just a biological one as far as I can see.

WhyTF is there a clipping of an article about young women having terminations in the middle of it? Which isn't referred to in teh article at all (althouh I admit I skimmed it a bit).

Is it because when the DM was directing their vitriol towards older mothers in this article, they didn't want anyone to leave with the mistaken impression that women getting pregnant younger was a good idea either?

Fifitot - thanks for posting the Guardian article, as you say a sensible perspective.

Kiwikat - I had read the DM article in the same way that you had!

My Mother says that her GrandFather was an only child and born when his Mother was 42 in 18?? so women have not just started having babies in their forties!

Some of those comments on the Guardian article are really awful. I am 40 and about to have my first but those comments make me worry about how people view me as a first time older mum.

You'll be a fab mum, Dueling, they'll be jealous of your wisdom and style.

It seems to be the idiots who post on such comments pages more often than not. First-time mums over 40 - fabulous! From someone who knows.

Well the Daily Mail are still at it

"'Please don't let me die': One career woman describes how putting off having a baby nearly cost her life"

FFS!

"'To suffer what I did was very rare - there are less than a couple of hundred recorded cases in the UK" so why make it sound like all women who 'leave it too late' are in danger of suffering this way? They make me so bloody angry.

FFS - I HATE that paper. Woman hating crap that it publishes.

I love the fact they assume women over 40 are just 'putting it off'. God, women get pregnant over 40, their bodies allow it, it happens, get over it DM!