Women delaying motherhood is worrying

[funnyvalentine]

The chief medical officer (herself a woman who had 2 kids in her 40s) says it's worrying that women are delaying motherhood:

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/10578227/Women-delaying-motherhood-is-worrying-issue-says-Britains-chief-doctor.html

On the one hand, 'men delaying fatherhood' isn't as much of a health issue. The issues are with a decline in female fertility and increased health risks to pregnancy. But men clearly play a big role in when women have children. So why is it always 'women delaying motherhood' as though it's a choice women make in a vacuum?

She is also concerned that many women are choosing not to have children. I'm at a loss to understand why not having children is a bad thing?

Nah, she just intrigues me with her ability to throw herself wholeheartedly into a debate whilst remaining so damn nice. Even her insults are gentle whereas I invariably revert to profanities.

Nurofen ? You've been listening to Pacific, haven't you ? Forget that, get the good stuff.

It depends how big you want your family. We wanted 4 children and I want to continue with my career so we both started early 20s to space them out to make it possible.

As people have pointed out on the thread, people make decisions in a context. What can appear to each of us as individuals to be our own personal choice is one that is highly influenced by the context we are in. Changing the context of our society so that the economic infrastructure (for example lower house prices, state funded high quality childcare), career opportunities, support of children (from other people, not just the mother) and lack of social prejudices all made it possible for women to make a positive choice to have children from their late teens onwards can only be a good thing.

It isn't inevitable that people don't meet appropriate partners; it is a social change that many men don't want to take on responsibilities until their thirties. It isn't inevitable that people can't afford children. It is an economic change that the average age of a first time buyer without financial support from their parents is 37. It isn't inevitable that having a child at twenty two has negative career consequences. All these things can be changed.

The issue is then accomplishing that without somehow being judgemental of women who want to have children later or not at all. It's just those choices should be genuine choices made in a society that is positive about mothers of all ages.

I think its easier to suck it up and take only a couple of months maternity leave if you want to carry on working sometimes if it means a big opportunity will be missed.

I have always found it interesting, and continue to be mildly amazed that the issue of men's ability to make good healthy sperm decreases as he ages, in the same way as women's fertility decreases on a continuum as we all age.

I read (and could find again) some interesting papers about older men's sperm being a contributory factor in increased health risks in babies, that they are more likely to pass along dodgy genes.

This never seems to get mentioned in articles like this. So, either:

1. I imagined reading this.

I have a fertile imagination, but it doesn't tend to come up with scientific papers about sperm, it's more about dragons and unicorns and shit.

1. It's easier to blame women for their declining fertility, and attendant increased risks of having a 'wonky' baby.

That couldn't possibly be the case in our now completely equal and over-feminised society, could it?

The article is about the risks to the mother's health mostly, not the baby's. And the way our society is set up, any increase in the number of children born with disabilities due to delayed fatherhood would have a far greater impact on the health, time and finances collectively of the mothers of those children rather than the fathers.

I'm aware of both those things. My point (that I obviously failed to get across) is that articles such as this one, which place the onus for having babies before a certain cut off date on women, forget that there is another set of gametes involved in the process, possibly in order to blame women for their children's difficulties, when it's just as likely to have been the older sperm which caused those difficulties.

I know from personal experience that it's the women who invests more time in looking after a disabled child

Yes, Sorry if I seemed to be ignoring your point. I also suspect that no only is such research under reported, but that such research isn't revealing the full extent of the problems because the amount of research being carried out into the issue of older fathers is small.

I came on to say the same as capt chaos. Re paternal age potentially having an effect on a range of things for both the mother and the baby (eg increased risk of miscarriage). More study is being done on this, it is an area that has not been looked into for long for a variety of reasons.

There is a wiki here which includes things like:

"Adverse pregnancy outcomes and pre-eclampsia[edit]

Studies published between 2002 and 2008 have been consistent in associating advanced paternal age with miscarriage (spontaneous abortion),[26][27][28][29] stillbirth,[30] and fetal death (which includes both miscarriage and stillbirth).[31] In addition, one 2002 study linked paternal age with pre-eclampsia, a complication of pregnancy that can be associated with adverse health outcomes for both the pregnant woman and the fetus.[32]"

These are quite clearly adverse for the mother.

However for some unknown (cough) reason, it is rarely (never?) mentioned in these types of press stories.

I don't understand the recent scaremongering (not just in UK, any country) about women choosing not to have children.

To be honest, I am childless (or childfree) and happy with that, never regretted it. Why do we have to be treated as freaks even by doctors now?

I mean, it feels awful to be judged negatively for a choice and it feels more horrible to be asked why. I don't go around asking mothers why they have children because I am assuming they are quite happy having them...

Baffling.

Loki I agree I don't understand at all why a woman's perfectly reasonable choice not to have any babies is met with such alarm and despondency all over the place.

i think maybe a lot of people don't understand what women are if they don't have children, what are they for, it's just too confusing for them or something.

Well yes, men are out there running (or ruining) the world, and it's women's job to produce the next generation to populate it, so if women don't have babies, what can the reason for their existence possibly be?

Teitetua

I could agree with you, problem is that... Even some mothers treat childless women in the same way, not just men...

NiceTabard

I agree!

Yes, confusing, isn't it? ;) And what men are for, if they don't have children? They are not a waste of space as well then.. Hehe

An interesting statistic: most people have an above average number of legs.

Stats on fertility. Yes, fertility declines with age; there aren't many pregnant 80 year olds around. But the MAJORITY of women can get pregnant into their 40s and the MAJORITY of women will not have a child with a disability (99% of 40 year olds won't conceive a baby with Downs). Doesn't sound so bad does it? The reality is people with fertility problems probably had them in their 20s even if they weren't picked up until they were 35, there are still fewer women having babies in their 40s than there was in the 1930s (our parents generation were encouraged to have babies very young when you look at the historic picture, I know someone who was considered an 'old mother' at 25 in the 1970s) and the world's population is going up. This article is a non-story.

Most people have an average number of legs if the median is used, and nobody sensible would use the mean in looking at that situation, or if they did it would be rounded up to two not the useless figure of 1.9998 or whatever. The odds of having a foetus with a chromosomal abnormality (without even looking at other abnormalities) are 1 in 500 at under 24 years, 1 in 63 at 40 years and 1 in 18 at 45 years of maternal age. Women do need to know these risks and generally want to know them. The issues are surely why male age is not being looked at or reported adequately so that prospective fathers can know the risks and prospective mothers can know the risks to both themselves and their children of choosing an older father, and why all this is being pushed as being about individual choice rather than the very difficult social context all women are being put in and then unfairly blamed for at every age (okay, maybe if you conceive at exactly 28. 4 years people won't demonise you). The question has to be why are we looking at only these statistics on women, and not also looking at statistics on fathers' age, housing, income, equality as well when creating these news reports.

I don't understand the article either.

What exactly is worrying? Who is it worrying for?

We live on an over populated planet. People having 10-12 children is more of a public health issue and if we are not looking at it from the issue of public health then it is not worrying.

I was born in the 1960s, my parents smoked, exercise was something you did in PE at school and never after leaving at age 15.

Someone choosing to become pregnant at 40 is probably in much better health than the average 25 year old in 1965.

1 in 18 at 45 years of maternal age

So 94.5% of 45 years old don't have a foetus with a chromosomal abnormality. The risks are higher than for a younger woman but they are still low.

How statistics are presented does make a difference to how people perceive them. A real life example: FIL needed an operation and was told by his doctor that 1 in 20 didn't make it. He was horrified and didn't want to have the operation. A family friend is a consultant in the same area of medicine and she spoke to him and explained that 95% of people survived the operation. The same statistic, but apparently FIL was much happier knowing 95% survived than 1 in 20 didn't make it.

I don't think 1 in 20 is a low risk. If we were talking about rape, for example, and the Home Office says 1 in 20 women are raped (although other ways of calculating sexual assault rates state it as much higher), I would consider that a high risk and a matter of public concern. If there was a one in twenty risk that my child died under general anaesthetic when he had some teeth removed, I would not have agreed to it. If women were being routinely given a treatment (say the vaccine connected to cervical cancer) that was going to result in a 1 in 20 chance of women having a child with a chromosomal abnormality, I would consider that a national scandal. 1 in 500 is a low risk to most people. A 1 in 18 risk is not low to most people if it will have major consequences for a loved one. It is certainly not acceptable to me for women to be pressurised into accepting such increased risks because of societal circumstances beyond individual control.