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?

There was a news story on this recently, SM - I'm on my phone and can't link, but if you google you should be able to find it.

Like your list buffy.

Stop defining work based on factory hours. Embrace flexibility for both men and women

I've recently seen a few articles and blog posts making the argument that a shorter/flexible working week is more productive, with hardly any mention of women, like this one:

www.fastcoexist.com/3020866/the-30-hour-work-week-is-here-if-you-want-it

few people are going to make decisions about when they have children based on the benefit for the population as a whole

I don't want or need an altered work pattern,i don't need to be told I should work less
I don't want to be pt, I don't want to be at home more

So, in summary;

Option 1 - medical profession has scientific information on health risks to women and makes it public

Option 2 - medical profession has scientific information on health risks to women and does not make it public

Verdict in either case - patriarchal bastards.

Oh, and someone said 'having children is not just an issue for women'. No, but pregnancy was, last time I looked, and the good Professor is talking about pregnancy and the risks therein.

I can't see the problem in discussing or disseminating fact,transparency is good

I do think everyone should be better informed about these important aspects of women's health, such as declining fertility (say from late thirties onwards) Also other problems (particularly increased risks of miscarriage )
I was rather surprised the other day that DH didn't seem to be aware that women's fertility gradually declined (forget how it came up) despite it taking me a year to conceive dd at 34. Then I had ds at 36 (without such a long wait thankfully) I feel very fortunate.
Anyhow, I think knowing the facts is (almost) always helpful, and then people can be empowered to make informed choices - whatever is right for them

Artetas where did you get that impression from? I will quote myself

So I agree with her comments that there are health implications to women having children later in life, and that perhaps the overall health of the nation could be improved if the average age of mums could be brought down. I absolutely don't think that individual women are making selfish decisions about when to have kids.

Given that female doctors are amongst the worst offenders for delaying pregnancy I really do raise an eyebrow to it. If the people who understand the risks best and are financially generally amongst the best off are still doing it, then that raises questions about what we are being told, the profession's attitude to women and societies role in it.

The best educated are making a decision which they feel best - and still choosing the apparent risks. But apparently THEY are wrong. That's rather patronising.

"there are careers where you are expected to put in the long hours and high productivity and move up the ladder quickly during the years that coincide with women being fertile"

That's almost EVERY career.

If women are going to take the current advice to have children early and then worry about the fact that they have no ability to support themselves financially, they will have missed the boat on A LOT of interesting (and important) work.

Until the structure of the workplace changes so that this is no longer the case, educated women are absolutely right to delay having children until they have a few miles on the clock in their working life.

And berating them for that regularly and scaring them with constant reminders of some disputed figures for fertility decline in mid-30s, is its own agenda. Not just helpfully informing them of things they might now know.

join, your post made me grin.

The thing that annoys me here is - IME, it's not, by and large, women who don't know this stuff. Men don't, though. In my purely anecdotal experience, a whole lot of men have very little clue about fertility, because this stuff is rarely addressed to them.

artetas - what are the health risks to women you're referring to? Surely the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth far outweigh any minor health risks they bring with them?

The research isnt in dispute.fertility declines with age,birth risks increase with age
With knowledge of facts,it's up to women to determine what they do with information

good point, joinyourplayfellows, i should have phrased that as almost every career, though some of course are slightly easier than others in that respect

Option 1 - medical profession has scientific information on health risks to women and makes it public

Option 2 - medical profession has scientific information on health risks to women and does not make it public

Yeah, because those are the ONLY TWO possibilities here.

There is definitely no

Option 3 - mainstream media organisation has "scientific" information that suits its editorial line and publishes scare stories about it on a regular basis for years

scottishmummy - did you really miss all the recent stories that in fact a lot of data on the ability of women 35+ to fall pregnant is drawn from mid19th century records (in France, not that that is the crucial fact). I think many people, including, me had assumed this data was continually updated, but that isn't the case.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/07/how-long-can-you-wait-to-have-a-baby/309374/

women, whatever decision you make, it is wrong and BAD for society

LRD I think the increased health risks are pregnancy at 40 compared to pregnancy at 30, rather than pregnancy at 40 vs. no pregnancy at 40 :)

And yes, you're right about men not knowing. I remember having to educate DH on the matter when I first met him.

I do think it's bizarre that men are excluded from this debate (though I'm not surprised, as it wouldn't sell papers like woman-bashing does). I would have happily had kids at 24, but there was no way my partner (or the next one) considered himself ready. In the end it was for the best, but am I alone in thinking men in their twenties and thirties also need to be part of this discussion, as if they're saying wait, women have to?

artetas I don't think anyone is disputing that women should be armed with the information that they need. As scottishmummy said, transparency is good.

There is a difference between arming people with information (which could be done at school, through GPs, NHS choices, whatever) and this constant regurgitating of the same information, same old stereotypes and maybe a different soundbite in the right wing press. Scan the Mail Online for long enough and you will see this article with slight tweaks on a very regular basis, with the same old woman-blaiming comments posted by readers. That's going beyond transparency.

The research isnt in dispute.fertility declines with age,birth risks increase with age

But what age?

At what age does fertility start to decline significantly?

The "fertility falling off a cliff" at 35 is certainly not proven, despite being regularly trotted out.

In the US the same guff is given about a cliff at 30, putting extra pressure on women who can look forward to 6 weeks off after the birth and no maternity pay.

Actually join said it far better than I did.

Yes, I think they are, funny.

But my point is, that's skewing things in a gendered way, isn't it? Arte missed the point that there is a 'no kids at all' option, which has extremely minor health downsides (though debatable mental health downsides if it's not voluntary).

The implication is always 'women, you will suffer and (as mrsd says) produce disabled children who will suffer and burden the rest of us if you do this', not 'hmm, maybe you are happy without kids'.

There is also a study out suggesting childless couples are generally happier than couples with children, though of course this could well be skewed by all the people in the 'honeymoon' phase who've not yet got round to kids.

Also, does it actually matter if the population declines? If not, why are we worrying about this?

It matters in terms of people around to pay taxes when we're old, I guess.

I'll say one 'dirty' word then.

Immigration.

Its not like the world's population is in decline.