Note: I don’t have any malice for women who have children later in life, and I don’t want to cause women who are over 35 and pregnant any concerns. As I have written before my wife was 35 when she gave birth to our son, and we didn’t have any age related complications. I presume women in this situation have already discussed it with their doctor and don’t need any further information from me or anyone else in the manosphere. Nothing I write in this blog should be considered medical advice. Women of any age who have questions on the topic should consult their doctor. Please skip this post if you are a woman over 35 and pregnant or trying to get pregnant.
Commenter pirran linked to an article by Claudia Spahr on Yahoo Shine: Want to have a baby? Here are 5 reasons you should consider waiting. Most of it is the usual gems like this excerpt from reason #1:
After spending decades at fancy bars in treacherous heels downing chocolate martinis and other ludicrously-priced cocktails most women feel prepared to shift their focus from pumps to Pampers.
However reason number two is a classic example of Dalrocks Law:
2) The kids are healthier and smarter
I’m not making this up. Oh no! Studies show that older mothers have healthier babies than younger mothers. Women over 35 are shown to care more about nutrition, exercise and rest during pregnancy so this could be a good reason for the bouncy babes. Research also shows that older parents have more available time to spend with junior and the kids perform better at school.
She doesn’t name or link to these studies in the article (maybe in her book), but the basic premise is pure nonsense. My guess is that someone noticed that higher IQ women tended to marry and have children a bit later (on average), and that their children tended to be healthier and smarter. This doesn’t mean that any given woman will have healthier kids if she waits until after age 35 as the article suggests. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. There is a reason pregnancies where the mother is 35 or older are called geriatric pregnancies. As women get older the risks increase. There isn’t a magic year where it goes from being safe to unsafe to have a child; this is a case of gradually increasing risk. You can see this in chart at American Family Physician on the risk of down syndrome. For more information, check out the WebMD page Pregnancy After Age 35.
As I wrote above I don’t want to upset women who are in this situation, nor am I passing any judgment on their decisions. But it is outright cruel for feminists to lie to younger women in order to convince them to delay becoming a mother. The title of the article comes right out and tries to talk women who want to become mothers now into waiting until they are older. This isn’t an effort to give them all of the facts and let them make an informed choice. They are trying to frighten women into following a more feminist approved life path. Just like the misleading use of divorce statistics by the authors of Last One Down the Aisle Wins, they are leaving women with a very inaccurate understanding of the risks involved. Who needs facts when you have ideology? Moreover, who still believes that feminists have women’s best interest at heart?
What I don’t understand is *why* they want to convince women to put off pregnancy.What is the gain? Is it just rationalisation to convince themselves that putting it off was best for the child? or is there some reason they really don’t want young women to go for it?
I don’t care for the opposite approach – “have kids now, figure it out once you have them”, or the “all you need is love” approach. I do want women to wait until they are stably-partnered, have a steady source of income (whether one or two), and have tried out some childcare to get into it with open eyes. But that isn’t reason to wait until they’re on the cusp of infertility when you have any other option. Women who want to have children need to understand that it has a time limit and prioritize their life accordingly.
The fact that you *can* still have kids late doesn’t mean it’s the best for either of you.
They want women to identify with them. They’re proselytizing an attitude.
I gather this particular news source is weighted to fat, older women and seriously beta manginas.
It seems more PC than PC; the Comintern would be proud of it.
I can understand the theory that women prefer “alpha” males to get the best genes, but by delaying pregnancies, their actions indicate otherwise. If baby is born with Down’s, pre-mature with complications, or other “special needs”, baby is very unlikely to become “alpha”, or even fully self-sufficient for that matter. Older women also get exposed to more pollution that bio-accumulates and gets transferred to baby.
“What I don’t understand is *why* they want to convince women to put off pregnancy.What is the gain? ”
Is the same more sluts = less option for men principle at work. Having kids is usually a deal breaker so they assume that having a large population of women delaying pregnancy (or not getting pregnant at all) will make their male partners less likely to leave for a more desirable woman (one that want children) when there is a less pool of available woman like that and you know very well that feminists want to make sure men are women are in the same dark place so the more of them are miserable because they couldn’t had children the more they will blame patriarchy because most men won’t man up for them to have it all.
Also motherhood takes time you cannot organize a slut walk if you need to drive your kids to the softball game? So is a situation that serves feminism because the more “free” women the more drones to support the Queen Bee, YMMV.
One of my best friend’s wife got pregnant with her second child when she was 38. Severe down’s and severe skeletal deformities visible in the fetus. My friend is the son of a minister, his brother is a minister, neither his nor his wife’s religion, nor her family are amenable to abortion. They made a very hard decision. For them it was the death of a child. He is ten years older and found a reference on the net that older men contribute to birth defects even if the woman is much younger. His self assigned guilt was like a hair shirt leaving him no peace. It was very ugly and very hard for both of them. Few things are as painful as holding a friend as close as your brother, while he cries uncontrollably over the loss of a life.
I have only one word for people who pander to the notion that women should delay having children so that they can live irresponsibly a little longer. Despicable. Just despicable.
Stephenie takes the prize for today’s longest sentence, over 110 words. j/k
Anyway did you all read the story of the polygamous Brown family filing suit against the Utah antipolygamy law? The case itself is kind of a meh case, but the polygamy issue makes me see about ten shades of red. No way should polygamy ever become legal, it would be a disaster for most men. Dalrock I know your preferred subject matter is more other things like divorce but I wondered if this subject interested you. The feminists at sites like Slate are obviously pro-legalization, it’s just the logical thing for the hypergamous choice addicted I suppose. Can you imagine the family-law absurdities, the millions of lonely cubicle-dwelling single men forced to pay taxes for the polygamists’ choices, the high-stakes game of go big or go home that men would be forced to play to have families? This nonsense must never, ever be tolerated.
@uncleFred … in such a case, I’d definitely pull the trigger on an abort. Although I do believe that such decisions are fully in woman’s control, and so the father is stuck with whatever she decides. His only power is in persuasion, which may not be much.
Older men may also be responsible for genetic problems, but since men sperm refreshes so fast, it seems much less likely. I’d like to see stats for older men and young (early twenties) women. These scenarios are probably only common in the Middle East, and I can’t see us getting good stats from that part of the world.
My mother was 42 when I was born and I’m the youngest child. My next oldest brother is 10 years older while my other two are 15 and 17. So who knows why I came to be but I have no major medical issues and things like my eyesight is in the 20/10 range. My hearing is going though but I attribute that more to listening to loud music rather than genetics. Other than being overweight the majority of my life which is now gone, I have had no chronic illnesses to speak of.
For some reason though, all my older brothers have poor vision and the oldest is a diabetic. But they are all immigrants and thus were not only starving at times and suffered from poor nutrition, they also didn’t have the benefit of medical care.
I think some of the motivation for telling women to delay motherhood is to limit population growth. Overpopulation was a big concern when feminism was being invented (say 1960-1985), and it’s still a big deal among (some, maybe most) feminists. We are not that far past forced sterilization of the unfit in this country, and that sort of thing, and worse, still goes on in other countries, with the blessing and funding of American foundations, if not the US government.
The basic biological fact is that if a healthy man and a healthy woman marry when they’re 22 and start “trying,” it’s not unreasonable to expect that over the next 20 years they’ll have 8 or 10 children. If the woman doesn’t start “trying” until she’s 32, her expected maximum is maybe 4 or 5, and if she waits until 36, it’s more like 2 or 3. This isn’t to criticize women who marry young and decide they don’t want that many kids; in my book, there are good reasons and bad ones for making a decision like that, and it’s basically impossible to judge without knowing individual facts. But waiting to start tends to take the option of a large family off the table.
So if you’re worried about population growth, one social change you might want to promote that will necessarily lower the fertility rate is delayed motherhood. One can promote that change through means that are in themselves pretty good (e.g., women should have the opportunity to go to college, because knowledge is good) or utterly despicable (e.g., women should spend their 20s and early 30s riding the carousel).
Google: paternal age effect, paternal age autism, paternal age schizophrenia, paternal age spermatogenesis, paternal age mutagenesis, etc. for similar information for your male readers.
Older men may also be responsible for genetic problems, but since men sperm refreshes so fast, it seems much less likely.
correct that to ” sperm mutate so fast” . By age 50, male sperm has gone through at least 800 rounds of spermatogenesis, with each round an opportunity for mutation. Old sperm are the greatest source of mutation for any population. In contrast, oogenesis only occurs prenatally in a baby girl fetus, and then only one per month after she starts ovulating.
Google: ” paternal age intelligence ” for an interesting study from Israel.
D, having been in this situation myself, I’m sort of an unofficial expert. What you say of true as far as it goes. Older mothers certainly do have higher risks of Down’s, miscarriage and complications than women in their twenties. The total risk of issues for girls under 18 however is actually comparable to that of women in their late thirties/early forties. Older women seem to manange their risks better though. The claim that “older mothers have healthier babies than younger mothers” is true because women over 35 DO care more about nutrition, exercise and rest during pregnancy. My high-risk OB/GYN actually preferred his older moms to his teen moms for just that reason. He claimed better outcomes for older women than teens. Of course, the twenties are the best time to have kids from a biological standpoint. However, while I never advise women to follow my example for exactly the reasons you cite, I do tell older women to go for it if they want a child. The benefits still outweigh the risk, even at 40. It’s how you view the glass–half full or half empty. I’d rather look at the 98% chance of having a non-Down’s baby at 40 then concentrate how much the odds of Down’s syndrome increase. And, as it turned out, my kids have no health issues, high IQs, etc.
@anonymous
Older men may also be responsible for genetic problems, but since men sperm refreshes so fast, it seems much less likely. I’d like to see stats for older men and young (early twenties) women.
According to the doctor who did my infertility surgeries, age is a factor in decreased sperm quality, quantity and motility. Advanced paternal age is also associated with autism, but it is unknown if this is due to men on the spectrum marrying later than others and then passing on genes that would have been defective even when they were younger or due to aging sperm. It is not uncommon however for doctors to offer donor sperm as a substitute for a husband’s poor quality sperm or to “wash” and concentrate the sperm from several of his ejaculations to raise the quality of husband donated sperm that can be used then ti artificially inseminate the wife.
Infertility is equally attributable to men and women. I don’t recall the exact stats, but I do recall that the percentage of couples in which the woman alone had a problem was equal to the percentage of couples in which the man alone had a problem. Next came couples in which both parties had issues, followed by unexplained infertility.
I’d like to see stats for older women and young men. I suspect that the odds of an older partner becoming a parent are higher if they have a younger spouse to compensate, no matter which partner is younger.
D, having been in this situation myself, I’m sort of an unofficial expert.
But apparently not as expert as jz. Great posts!
Don’t worry, Dalrock. I have more than enough scorn and malice for such women to make up for your lack thereof.
Perhaps in 10 or 15 years there will be articles about how empowering it is to be the 45-50 year-old mother of a child with “special needs.”
I think it is all about choice addiction and not being sure what they want. You seldom see women who do not want having children and who are being very clear about, to get maximum benefit of their choice. And you seldom see woman who really want children and who signal that clearly, and gets her ducks in a row to make it happen under the best circumstances.
Maybe it’s all about limiting the possibility for middle class, middle aged, white men to get to chose one of the only two types of LTRs they want, which is a) either avoiding the risks of Marriage 2.0, by just living together and not having any children with a woman of the same age or slightly younger, or b) limiting the risks to the maximum by marrying and having children with a young woman who is clearly not influenced by feminist thinking, but has made choices that signal that she is clearly against it.
I suspect any data showing healthier babies (would be VERY interested in what metric is used) in women over 35 is probably not recent and that there are population differences that make such a claim less true (if at all true) among present and oncoming cohorts of women in that age range.
I’ve noticed this meme being pushed a lot in the last month or so. (jz, q.v.) Cui bono, I ask.
A quick google for the terms suggests that ‘mothers over 35 have healthier babies’ is a transmutation of ‘women who work out a fair amount have healthier babies and a lot of 35 year olds having babies work out, more so as a group than younger women having babies’.
not really the same at all. but perhaps the dawn will bring someone posting a link to one of these mysterious studies.
@RL
overpopulation is a good point. The trouble is that we are taking in huge numbers of immigrant where each tends to have a big family. The government directly subsidizes many of them with Section 8, Medicaid, and food stamps. So in practical terms, the “barbarians” are winning the race thanks to the tax payers and liberal immigration policy.
@J
I can buy that older women make much more responsible mothers and there for level the odds. Many young women are into tobacco, alcohol, junk foods, late nights, and possibly drugs, both legal and illegal. Any one of these can be bad news for a fetus.
@jz
I read somewhere that if a man gets a lumbar or abdominal x-ray, that can increase the odds of baby genetic problems down the line, which would confirm your theory of sperm mutations. Doctors tend to give these sort of xrays out like candy. Of course, for them, any future medical problems is money in the bank.
Surely there is an obvious point here that’s being missed: Women over 35 take greater care during pregnancy because _they have to_, as they are taking on a much greater risk than a woman in her 20s would be. Does Spahr start from this observation and then conclude older women must be having healthier babies as a result? That would be like saying people with diabetes are healthier than the rest of the population because they are more careful to monitor their sugar intake. What a pity she doesn’t cite her sources here.
I had a perfectly healthy baby at 35, and another at 37. But I also had 3 babies in my early 20’s (yes, all same father, my husband!).
Anyway, from what I have read the problem is when women delay their first pregnancy. Women for instance, who begin having children during peak fertility years (early to mid 20’s), and simply continue having babies into their late 30’s, early 40’s, the chance of complications isn’t nearly as high as women who wait.
That said, I totally agree with the spirit and implications of the post. Waiting until your eggs are old to even begin having children, given all the information we know now, is foolish.
@J
It makes sense that teen moms would be more of an issue than those in their late 30s, for example. In our culture teen pregnancy is generally frowned upon, so as a group teen moms probably represent a much more dysfunctional group of women. And this is before you account for immaturity. But the article wasn’t trying to talk teens out of becoming moms. It was suggesting that women wait until after age 35.
I just think they should have the best information possible and make their own informed decision. As you say the absolute risk isn’t that high, although you need to account for more than downs. All of the chromosomal defect risks increase at around the same rate as I understand it.
@ Twenty
“I’ve noticed this meme being pushed a lot in the last month or so. (jz, q.v.) Cui bono, I ask.”
I’ve had a similar impression. It may very well be true that older men contribute to birth defects more, but one has to step back and ask , if it’s true, why the effect wasn’t noticed by society earlier … as surely there must have been millions of such experiments.
If the relationship is robust, you would think an old wive’s tale would have been generated by now as a warning: “Watch out for those older men, or your children will grow up to be crazy, I’m tellin’ ya, girlfriend!” … and we would find other cultures noticing the same.
Then again, I suppose it’s possible, that the long delay between childbirth and the expression of the defect may be the reason why it wasn’t noticed before…
I just saw the latest entry on her blog. She is pregnant at 42 (26 weeks in), and hasn’t had an ultrasound if I’m understanding her post correctly. Part of this is she was in Goa and didn’t have good access to this kind of care, and part of it is because she trusts reflexology more than an ultrasound.
I guess it doesn’t take much to bring the hisses out of the woodwork. Say one word about ‘geriatric pregnancy’ and in swoop the nattering nabobs of false equivalency to bang on about male infertility and the risks apertaining thereunto.
I don’t think any reasonable person denies that older men also contribute to the birth defects and health problems of their offspring at higher rates than younger men. No one is saying that men do not have a reproductive expiration date. The only claim here is that women have a significantly smaller window than men, and that obsucring this core & enduring truth does a profund disservice to them. This is indisputably true, and attempting to shift the conversation to male reproductive longevity isn’t so much an attempt to educate as a transparently junevile exercise in tit-for-tat.
You do not need a degree in obstetrics to recognise – life being limited – that it is better to do what you want to do sooner rather than later. If you are deliberately waiting until your late thirties or beyond to become a mother (or father) – for the first time – then one must conclude that parenthood is not really a major concern for you – that children are no more than a designer accessory to your life.
There is of course no one right age – and what one gains by waiting is compensated for in other ways by teenage motherhood. A recent study by an English statistician deduced that the ideal age for marriage (children following soon after presumably) was thirty-two for a man and twenty-seven for a woman. That feels about right to me.
Although there are greater risks with later pregnancies, it is easy to exagerate these. We all know the real reason for promotion of delayed motherhood. I detect a spinning – hamster.
@anonymous
I can buy that older women make much more responsible mothers and there for level the odds. Many young women are into tobacco, alcohol, junk foods, late nights, and possibly drugs, both legal and illegal. Any one of these can be bad news for a fetus.
Exactly.But there are also strictly physical, not behavioral factors, that make teen motherhood problematic.
@D
It makes sense that teen moms would be more of an issue than those in their late 30s, for example. In our culture teen pregnancy is generally frowned upon, so as a group teen moms probably represent a much more dysfunctional group of women. And this is before you account for immaturity.
That is true in modern America, but even in more traditional cultures, teen wives have more difficulties in pregnancy and childbirth and higher mortality rates–simply because they are not fully grown. They was an interesting article in either the June Smithsonian or National Geographic magazine that I read at the orthodontist a few weeks ago. It was about the high mortality rate aming child brides/mothers in places like India and Yemen. One poor child died of internal ruptures during her “honeymoon.” I hesitate to even try to imagine what happened there.
But the article wasn’t trying to talk teens out of becoming moms. It was suggesting that women wait until after age 35.
I know. I was just trying make sense of her statement about older moms producing healthier babies..
I just think they should have the best information possible and make their own informed decision.
Absolutely! As I said, when young women look at me and think they have all the time in the world, I do set them straight. I was very lucky. While I encounter a lot of medical issues, my kids skated through.
As you say the absolute risk isn’t that high, although you need to account for more than downs. All of the chromosomal defect risks increase at around the same rate as I understand it.
Yep. And the risks increase with both partners. Men need to realize that, while there are many incidences of old men becoming dads, aging limits their options too. Sure, one 50 year old man can marry a young woman and still have a passel of kids, but another can find that his sperm quality is too low do the job. There needs to be more awareness of that.
Interestingly, in my neck of the woods, I see a lot of women in their mid-20s searching hard for a spouse because they do know the clock is ticking. When they say they are dating for marriage and not kicks, a lot of guys disappear. I reassure them that that’s OK. It culls out the bad candidates before they make a big investment.
If the relationship is robust, you would think an old wive’s tale would have been generated by now as a warning: “Watch out for those older men, or your children will grow up to be crazy, I’m tellin’ ya, girlfriend!” … and we would find other cultures noticing the same
Really? How many traditional cultures even acknowledge that male infertility exists? Modern medicine tells us that when a cause for infertility can be identitified in only one partner, half the time it’s the man. I’d prefer to believe an infertility specialist than an old wife.
@J:
“When they say they are dating for marriage and not kicks, a lot of guys disappear. I reassure them that that’s OK. It culls out the bad candidates before they make a big investment.”
Perhaps you should consider telling them they are searching for the wrong reasons and that may be why the guys disappear. BTW – I’d tell a guy the same thing. Nothing wrong with seeking a man or woman who wants children, but deciding that it’s time to find someone BECAUSE your clock is ticking is likely to mean single parenthood down the road.
@D
She is pregnant at 42 (26 weeks in), and hasn’t had an ultrasound if I’m understanding her post correctly.
I can sort of understand her point, especially where bad equipment is involved. There’a point were the risks outweigh the benefits. I had a bunch of high resolution ultrasounds, but turned down amniocentisis because the risk of miscarriage from the procedure equaled the risk of having a genetically damaged child. Unless you plan to abort a damaged child, what’s the point of taking the risk? It doesn’t make any positive change in the outcome. There may be no real benefit in her knowing now.
[D: We did the same; level 2 ultrasounds but no amniocentesis. And as you say the question is “what are you going to do with this information?”. If abortion is off the table, what is the benefit? What struck me more was her belief in reflexology over science. Per wiki at least, they haven’t yet been able to prove reflexology works with science. I don’t think that kind of thing is generally a problem, but when you use it to replace standard medicine I think it is a different story.]
@uncle Fred
Perhaps you should consider telling them they are searching for the wrong reasons and that may be why the guys disappear. BTW – I’d tell a guy the same thing. Nothing wrong with seeking a man or woman who wants children, but deciding that it’s time to find someone BECAUSE your clock is ticking is likely to mean single parenthood down the road.
OK, but what exactly should they do? IMO, having kids IS a good reason to marry these days. After all, you don’t need a marriage to get sex or companionship anymore. That’s how many women fall into having a series of LTRs that lead nowhere dring their childbearing years.
I can certainly understand that a man would not want be trapped into a marriage because some woman is desperate to have kids, but time being limited, why spend six months to a year with a guy before finding out that he doesn’t want what you want? What’s wrong with being upfront about what you want and eliminating people with different goals from your dating pool? It’s not giving an ultimatum, it’s just allowing yourself to more on before wasting your time and effort. If I could re-do my dating years, I think I would be more upfront about my wants and needs. In fact, it was once I began doing that that I met my husband.
@J
I haven’t seen much on this, but it sounds plausible to me. At least we don’t have popular websites and books telling men their kids will be healthier if they wait until they are 50.
“My Name Is Jim says:
Anyway did you all read the story of the polygamous Brown family filing suit against the Utah antipolygamy law? The case itself is kind of a meh case, but the polygamy issue makes me see about ten shades of red. No way should polygamy ever become legal, it would be a disaster for most men.”
I haven’t followed the case in particular, but a country that permits gay marriage has no basis to deny plural marriage. It would be easy to lower spousal benefits, or make spousal benefits a fixed amount that a man must divide between however many spouses he chooses to have, but when it comes down to consenting adults, the precedent has been set for the state to butt out.
You can’t prevent a guy from living and fathering with five women, so what’s the big difference if officializing it? Not much different recognising partnerships of two men in a conjugal relationship.
“demirogue says:
My mother was 42 when I was born and I’m the youngest child. … Other than being overweight the majority of my life which is now gone, I have had no chronic illnesses to speak of.”
Higher risks don’t mean every case will come out the same. There is always the chance of problems or no problems in any individual pregnancy.
Another problem with getting stats on old men and young women from other countries is that the maternal care in a lot of these countries isn’t great, and will skew the results a fair bit.
At least we don’t have popular websites and books telling men their kids will be healthier if they wait until they are 50.
LOL. That’s true, but men do have the perception that they can go on forever without the media telling them so. I cringe when I hear manosphere guys saying that they are going wait that long and then find some young woman who is going to give them a big family. Some of course might, but others are in for a big unpleasant surprise. My own husband was surprised by when we were offered artificial insemination with his concentrated sperm or with donor sperm. (They were going to try super-ovulating me and concentrating his sperm as a way of increasing the odds of good sperm meeting good eggs at the right time.) I found out I was pregnant with my older son a few weeks before we had an initial appointment to pursue AI. Surprisingly, both of our kids were conceived naturally.
“TFH says:
If having children is such a ‘great joy’, then…
1) Why are women waiting until the absolute last minute to have a kid?
2) Why are they having only 1-2 kids, rather than 4, 5, or more, if this is just a ‘great joy’?
3) Why is it that upper-middle class families with 2 kids elect to get that BMW and excessive McMansion, rather than use that money for a 3rd kid. Apparently the BMW is an even ‘greater joy’ than a child.
And I don’t buy that people ‘can’t afford it’. People in the old days had big families despite lower prosperity than today. Children slept in bunk beds, and it was no presumed that a kid would get his own room.
Sorry, but the actions of people, particularly women, are just not consistent with the notion that they consider having a child to be the ‘greatest joy of all’.”
Many people say that parenting is their greatest joy. They get to be a parent by having one child. Having two to four means your kids have siblings. After that, you’re running into the law of diminishing returns. Most of the things that people like about having children aren’t added to by having more, while the negatives are compounded.
While most parents certainly can *afford* to have more kids, they can’t afford to have more and keep the rest of the standard of living the same. It’s not child-hating to say that you’d rather have a few, and be able to provide those kids with more toys and/or time, and pay for their educations, and such, rather than having twice as many kids and half as much of everything to give to them.
I know at least one couple of relatively modest means who love their daughter very much, but purposely chose to have only the one so as to devote all their time, attention, and (not vast sums of) money on her.
If you like cake, the first slice is awesome. The second slice might be good. The fact that you think cake is incredible doesn’t mean it’s going to be enjoyable to eat a whole one.
And the fact that you think your child is the best thing that every happened to you does not necessarily entail that more children will be better.
What struck me more was her belief in reflexology over science. Per wiki at least, they haven’t yet been able to prove reflexology works with science. I don’t think that kind of thing is generally a problem, but when you use it to replace standard medicine I think it is a different story.]
I agree. I once used reflexology pressure points for menestrual cramps, but to manage a high-risk pregnancy…NO. Not when the stakes are so high.
came across this comment:
http://beefaerie.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/its-all-teh-feminists-fault-of-course/comment-page-1/#comment-1259
As a mother of many (more than 5) who started giving birth in her 20s and continued well into “advanced maternal age,” the scientific illiteracy and rationalization is very sad to me. I just say this to explain I have no particular horse in this race…
It has been well established by various respected, repeatable medical studies that age of the mother in and of itself is a risk factor for various negative pregnancy outcomes including still birth. This may be heartbreaking to those women who have put off pregnancy but it is none the less the case that the studies took into consideration and controlled for lifestyle factors (diet, excercise, rest…) and still maternal age is a standalone risk factor!
When I try to explain this to younger women who hope to put off pregnancy or who haven’t found a man yet, they get mad at me. It isn’t about being mean it is about honesty
“TFH says:
Kai,
Even if it were true that the ‘joy’ is from the first one, and not from incremental kids thereafter (despite the fact that old people probably want as many grandchildren as possible)….
That still does not account for why women delay children until the last minute. I know, I know, they are riding the carousel. But at any rate, their actions of delaying until the last minute are consistent with getting dental work rather than pursuing the ‘greatest joy of all’.
The trick to having oodles of grandchildren is to have a couple of kids yourself, then convince each of them to have twelve. 😀
Some parents I know do see a big difference between one and two, because then you ‘get’ to see the two of them interacting as well. But at three they outnumber you, and it’s all downhill from there..
It is true that it does not explain the delay, and I’d blame two things.
1. A lot of women announce that kids are the best thing that ever happened to them AFTER they have kids. Now, at that point there is a strong vested interest in such claims, and as I have written elsewhere, I don’t always believe them. But for many women, it is entirely possible that they didn’t realize how awesome motherhood was going to be until they tried it. They might not have expected it to be the best part of their life, and thus didn’t prioritize it, but now that they are parents, have realized its awesomeness.
2. Even if they do think motherhood will be excellent, they think other aspects of life will be enjoyable as well (whether it’s having tons of men, or getting a phD or travelling the world or whatever), and they figure they have tons of time to parent, so they’d rather do the other things first. If I wanted to do two things, and one i thought more important, but would remove the option of two, vs doing two then still being able to do one, I might well delay the important one.
Now, I think women are getting poor information on the actual reality of how much time they have to remain fertile, but with the impression that you can just keep going, it’s easy to put it off.
3. The problem isn’t actually quite as bad as feared. Despite urgings like this, most women right now *aren’t* waiting until they are 40 to have kids. According to Canadian statistics for 2005 (most recent I could find easily – it’s probably only changed a little):
11% of first births are to women 35+. That’s up a lot from earlier years, but it’s still not quite ‘most women are waiting until the last minute.
26% of first births are to women 30-35. That’s putting it off, but not really all that unreasonable these days with late schooling and no major rush.
Meanwhile 35% of first births are still to women 25-29, and a surprising 30% still to women under 25.
So even if we assume the trend has continued a little more in the past five years, that’s still 60% of Canadian first births born to women under 30. – not quite the massive rash of mothers 35+. I think a little of what we’re hearing might just be the usual screaming outliers.
@Kai
Fascinating stats. I don’t doubt the figures, but I wonder if this is due to the choices of women or the ruthless way that biological reality refuses to bend to their whim. Women are free to wait as long as they want to try to have kids. But the longer they wait the longer they will have to wait (on average) to conceive. Some percentage will try but not be able to. Others who might hope for 2 or 3 will only have one, etc. This seems like something which would be very difficult to get accurate stats on unless you did a longitudinal study asking women throughout their adult lives how many children they planned on having and at what age, and then seeing how their expectations ultimately panned out.
I disregarded the warning not to read the article, even though I am 40 and trying to conceive. I am pretty sure that no older pregnant lady (or younger woman for that matter) would be shocked by Dalrock’s revelations. Women are constantly told about the dangers of age-related infertility as well as the increased risk of Down’s Syndrome (which is still only 1% at 40).
Most of my friends and I have thought about this for years. Literally going back to middle school, I have been repeatedly part of long, fraught conversations with female friends regarding exactly we would structure our lives to fit in both kids and profession. It’s not like the women who are postponing kids (and these women tend to be better educated than average) never considered the risks and downsides. We’ve been pondering this all our lives to an extent that I think would be startling to most men. From the perspective of women in my demographic, the upsides captured in the Yahoo article tend to outweigh the risks.
namae nanka
You know this PC thing is so damaging my gyno in DR was totally appaled when I informed her that at 26 I was going to start to have sex but yet the guy and I weren’t married. She told me that in her experience all the issues women have is because of sex with many partners and she was not a religious person. She was very honest about it, prescribed my battery of test and let me go. I was shocked by this revelation because no one wants to talk about this not even in a 3rd world country. Because indeed is not PC to tell women to control their sexuality because if not they will pay the consequences.
“That still does not account for why women delay children until the last minute. I know, I know, they are riding the carousel. But at any rate, their actions of delaying until the last minute are consistent with getting dental work rather than pursuing the ‘greatest joy of all’.”
Herd mentality.
How many shows/movies/book glamorize the young mother that is happy with her husband and kids vs the young woman that is happy with her girlfriends and lovers?
There is your answer.
“Dalrock says:
Fascinating stats. I don’t doubt the figures, but I wonder if this is due to the choices of women or the ruthless way that biological reality refuses to bend to their whim. Women are free to wait as long as they want to try to have kids. But the longer they wait the longer they will have to wait (on average) to conceive. Some percentage will try but not be able to. Others who might hope for 2 or 3 will only have one, etc. This seems like something which would be very difficult to get accurate stats on unless you did a longitudinal study asking women throughout their adult lives how many children they planned on having and at what age, and then seeing how their expectations ultimately panned out.”
The stats I could find are not exactly the stats that I would desire. These, for example, were backwards – they started with the number of babies born in 2005 to women with no other children, and then categorized the ages of the women. I’d find more precise a study of 50-year-old women, and ask them all at what age they had their first child. Of course, that statistic would be about thirty years old, so not so helpful.
It also doesn’t tell us when these women started trying to have kids – if it took the 28-year-olds two months, and the 36-year-olds two years. It also doesn’t address how many kids the women went on to have, and whether they would have wanted more. It definitely doesn’t include the women who found themselves unable to have kids.
But in general, I think we might be panicking just a little prematurely here. I think there is cause for concern when women are *encouraged* to put off childbearing until the age where it becomes difficult, but just because we’re seeing a lot of that, and seeing a lot of older women having kids, doesn’t mean that it’s actually the majority. We simply don’t hear stories about the ‘normal’ pregnancies (not teens, not old). There are still a good number of women (at least up here) starting to have kids at an age later than their mothers and grandmothers, but still quite reasonable.
“Doomed Harlot says:
I disregarded the warning not to read the article, even though I am 40 and trying to conceive. I am pretty sure that no older pregnant lady (or younger woman for that matter) would be shocked by Dalrock’s revelations. Women are constantly told about the dangers of age-related infertility as well as the increased risk of Down’s Syndrome (which is still only 1% at 40).
Most of my friends and I have thought about this for years. Literally going back to middle school, I have been repeatedly part of long, fraught conversations with female friends regarding exactly we would structure our lives to fit in both kids and profession. It’s not like the women who are postponing kids (and these women tend to be better educated than average) never considered the risks and downsides. We’ve been pondering this all our lives to an extent that I think would be startling to most men. From the perspective of women in my demographic, the upsides captured in the Yahoo article tend to outweigh the risks.”
Do you really think you are the average? My experience is certainly different. I think some people make educated choices that they are willing to open the possibility of ending up with no kids, rather than having them early. but I suspect a lot of women don’t think about it much.
It’s also not a question of “Well, I’m 40 now – should I still have kids?” Of course it may still be worth it for most people (though 1 in 100 babies having some issue is not what I would consider a minor issue).
The issue is “I’m 22 – when should I be planning for kids?” While it’s certainly fine to find yourself 40, childless, and go ahead and try, it’s not great to suggest that other women who don’t have to wait to that endpoint do so on purpose. If you ARE in your early twenties and interested in having children, it’s important to be making informed decisions based on the real information – not “put it off – you have tons of time”.
Whilst you and your friends may have discussed the issue of fertility DH, many other professional women did not. Mostly not even realizing that fertility starts to decline in the late twenties.
http://menfertilitysupplements.com/careers-and-babies-fertility-decline-underscores-dilemma/
“I just felt like I could put things off to when it appeared to be convenient to finally try to get pregnant,” says a 41-year-old physician in Atlanta, now 35 weeks pregnant after spending more than $40,000 on in vitro fertilization, “and was mortified at the fact, as the event unfolded, that it was not possible through normal intercourse.”
The career-vs.-family quandary is hardly a new one, but it has received renewed scrutiny thanks to a new book — and a related Time magazine cover story — suggesting many women may have missed out altogether on the chance to have kids.
Findings from the U.S.-Italian Study — published Tuesday in Human Reproduction, Europe’s leading journal of reproductive medicine — underscore the dilemma, saying that a woman’s fertility starts declining as early as her late 20s, not in her 30s as was previously thought. (Full story)
In her book, “Creating a Life,” author Sylvia Ann Hewlett suggests some career-oriented women who thought they could hold off on having children find out too late that they simply can’t.
She says a third to half of professional women are childless at age 40, and only a small percentage planned it that way. Most, she said, now feel “intense regret.”
“Part of the problem is that they focused like a laser beam on their career for 10 years,” she told CNN.
Although it’s not a revelation that women’s ability to conceive a child gradually declines as they approach middle age, some seemed surprised — even shocked — to learn that fertility begins to fall in their late 20s.
And they’re wondering why nobody bothered to tell them. “…………
I’l tell you in one succinct word, DH. FEMINISM!
Women have been fed the furphy that they can have a career and kids.. Have it all, whenever they want it. They hammered it home to women, who took the bait hook line and sinker..
Well, the chickens have now come home to roost.
Even smart women can be dumb sometimes. 😦
Whilst you and your friends may have discussed the issue of fertility DH, many other professional women did not. Mostly not even realizing that fertility starts to decline in the late twenties.
“I just felt like I could put things off to when it appeared to be convenient to finally try to get pregnant,” says a 41-year-old physician in Atlanta, now 35 weeks pregnant after spending more than $40,000 on in vitro fertilization, “and was mortified at the fact, as the event unfolded, that it was not possible through normal intercourse.”
The career-vs.-family quandary is hardly a new one, but it has received renewed scrutiny thanks to a new book — and a related Time magazine cover story — suggesting many women may have missed out altogether on the chance to have kids.
Findings from the U.S.-Italian Study — published Tuesday in Human Reproduction, Europe’s leading journal of reproductive medicine — underscore the dilemma, saying that a woman’s fertility starts declining as early as her late 20s, not in her 30s as was previously thought. (Full story)
In her book, “Creating a Life,” author Sylvia Ann Hewlett suggests some career-oriented women who thought they could hold off on having children find out too late that they simply can’t.
She says a third to half of professional women are childless at age 40, and only a small percentage planned it that way. Most, she said, now feel “intense regret.”
“Part of the problem is that they focused like a laser beam on their career for 10 years,” she told CNN.
Although it’s not a revelation that women’s ability to conceive a child gradually declines as they approach middle age, some seemed surprised — even shocked — to learn that fertility begins to fall in their late 20s.
And they’re wondering why nobody bothered to tell them. “…………
I’l tell you in one succinct word, DH. FEMINISM!
Women have been fed the furphy that they can have a career and kids.. Have it all, whenever they want it. They hammered it home to women, who took the bait hook line and sinker..
Well, the chickens have now come home to roost.
Even smart women can be dumb sometimes. 😦
I posted above comment without link because it wouldn’t post with the link. Google Career and Babies. Fertility decline.
[D: I’m not sure why but it (and a previous version) were caught in the spam filter. Two or more links will do this, but I only saw one. Either way I’ve released it.]
The problem is that they worked so that women could have ‘anything’ – which they now can. But they sold it as women can have ‘everything’ – which no-one can. Any ‘anything’ of choice comes with tradeoffs.
I agree that there is potentially destructive gender marxist propaganda out there regarding women’s health and fertility, but the science discussed here is incomplete… There are more variables in play than those being discussed when it comes to female or male fertility. The reasons mid-late thirty year old women have lower fertility might have some lifestyle causes that aren’t fully understood (effects of birth control, anti-depressants, low fat or fake fat diets, years of extreme exercise that kept her from cycling, etc.) Some of these variables are also potentially significant to male fertility. Furthermore, while I agree that women wanting a family life are getting bad info regarding how they should prioritize that and what the opportunity costs really are, I don’t think the statistics being discussed here are helpful on an individual basis. The fertility (present and future potential) likely has more to do with their individual genetics and biology than their age (when considered within a normal window of opportunity) and, as mentioned, health choices they make up until the time they start trying to have children. If you are very fertile at 22, then you probably still will be when you are mid thirties (women) or mid fifties (men), assuming you live a relatively healthy lifestyle with good diet and minimal prescription or recreational drug/hormone use.
One of the things we should be advising young people to do, besides pointing out that their fertility will decrease as they get older, is to have it tested when they are younger, to help them make better choices now.
Another point that I think should be made to young women is that “career fulfillment”, whatever than is supposed to mean, is something a woman can pursue from 45-65 and even older, when she can’t do much family building anyway. There is significant cultural bias against this idea, primarily I believe from the level of distrust the feminazis create in young women against men… They don’t want to have to ‘rely’ on their husband to be the sole or primary financial provider (which is ridiculous on several fronts, but…) and that is also related to…
… Another significant issue that is the way in which our school socialization processes promote women waiting to older ages to have children by promoting similar age relationships. There is nothing natural about herding groups kids of exactly the same age together for 8 hours a day. I think it keeps women from being interested in having kids until later than they would because they are dating men 1-4 years older than themselves instead of say, 4-12 years older. A 24 year old woman just out of grad school or with a couple years of work experience just married to a 32 year old man is likely to be more inclined to want to start a family because her husband will likely be at a much better provider status than a 26 year old brand new husband…
All of this might be borderline gibberish – and from a social standpoint, I’m not that worried. The Mormons and Catholics will keep us populated. The important thing to do if you want happy children and grand-kids is to talk about all of this with your own children.
@Sebastian
I agree with some points you make, specially pursuing careers later after you have a family, that is what my mother did and she has two degrees now :), I don’t agree with the elder thing mostly because I never liked old guys myself but then my definition of old is at least 10 years older and you mentioned four that is the age difference between my parents and my husband and me.
I do wonder how much a promiscuous past affects an elder woman trying to get pregnant? In my country I had seen many women having babies at old ages and there has be not issues it might be that we are lucky or that having a low sex partner count might have an effect. Is that even possible? I know that is not PC to link the number of partners to any complication any woman ever has in her life, but I do wonder if there is some other reason of this effect, YMMV.
[D: CSPB asked a similar question regarding partner count in his comment here. He included a link to an interesting video discussing the issue.]
Thanks for the video, very interesting. I also remember that the risk of pre-clampsia is lowered by swallowing and this is a secular science fact so there is probably more to promiscuity having a hand in the complications of pregnancy.
More than two lifetime partners increases the risk of all manner of female ailments for women, including conception difficulty. I found the information on a government site focused mainly on hpv. there’s other information showing that promiscuity is risky for women from a health perspective, but it’s not all in one place and one really has to hunt about on various (usually government, actually) sites for it.
@A Lady
I can imagine that is on feminists best interest to keep their women in the dark about this. Can you link me to this? I’m kind of making a folder because I’m pretty sure when I have the talk with my children I will need to point this out myself. Sex ed will just tell them put on a condom and bang away….very stupid advice, IMO.
sadly, no. they move a lot of the pages around on government websites, so it’s increasingly hard to find pages and reports. i run into it with food and economic stuff as well. it’s a total pain, that the data is there, but pages just mysteriously go missing or get renamed something funky and it just ends up being a big headache.
I do wonder how much a promiscuous past affects an elder woman trying to get pregnant? In my country I had seen many women having babies at old ages and there has be not issues it might be that we are lucky or that having a low sex partner count might have an effect.
While age in and of itself can be a factor, so can a history of STIs affect both male and female fertility. Infertility work-ups include routine testing for STIs for both partners.
Partner count can indeedbe a factor because high partner count increases the odds of contracting an STI. However, a woman who used condoms with 25 guys and never contracted an STI would still be better off medically than a woman who caught clamydia from the only guy she’d ever been with. I am skeptical of the video whose link CSPB posted and Dalrock referenced. While interesting, it contains some assertions that seem plausible but are certainly unproven or commonly unacknowledged by doctors afaik. I’d love to see some feedback from Rum or Athol on that video, which seems to have been produced by a religious (gloriatv) rather than medical group.
@Stephanie
the risk of pre-clampsia is lowered by swallowing
Swallowing what?
@ Sebastian “The reasons mid-late thirty year old women have lower fertility might have some lifestyle causes that aren’t fully understood (effects of birth control, anti-depressants, low fat or fake fat diets, years of extreme exercise that kept her from cycling, etc”
They’ve controlled for lifestyle issues and still found maternal age as a factor. Now, lifestyle can have an effect, but only a negative one. In orherwords, smoking drinking, promiscuity can shorten the fertility window but there is no known way to lengthen it.
These are hard facts for women who conceive at “advanced maternal age” aka geriatric pregnancy. Even having had healthy pregnancy earlier in life doesn’t offer any advantage.
One theory is that it is vascular so as a woman ages her body is not as good at supplying oxygen to the uterus, this would affect both conception and various pregnancy difficulties. If this theory is correct, there is no easy solution.
“Swallowing what?”
??? You are joking right?
“One theory is that it is vascular so as a woman ages her body is not as good at supplying oxygen to the uterus, this would affect both conception and various pregnancy difficulties. If this theory is correct, there is no easy solution.”
Well the human body is smart an adaptable we had already seen that malnutrition affects periods so in a situation were a woman hasn’t gotten pregnant in a certain period of time I wouldn’t be surprised if the body assumed that there were no fertile males around or no males at all and is better to stop supplying the uterus with resources that they are not likely to be used at an given point and supply other organs more important for survival in lieu of reproduction. Just a though.
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@Stephanie
There isn’t a difference between women who have & haven’t had children before. Also there isn’t any physiological reason the body would stop supplying or cut ba k resources to the uterus of an otherwise healthy woman.
“Swallowing what?”
??? You are joking right?
The fact that you can’t imagine someone not immediately following “swallowing” (I’m a poet) with “ejaculate” (or some crude term) says more about you than perhaps you imagine. “Like, OMG, don’t you watch porn?? LOL!” Did you mention having done web porn somewhere? Another attention seeking narcissist who has to talk about doing web porn as if it’s some accomplishment or as if it shows a level of sophistication that few achieve – as if sophistication is the mark of a great person or some kind of new morality. How utterly banal, and what a load of horse manure about “swallowing” (tee hee) being preventative against pre-pre-eclampsia. If that’s so, it’s probably more indicative of requiring a better diet, not that somehow ejaculate is some magical potion. (No, this isn’t a passive-aggressive rant because I don’t like swallowing ejaculate or because I’m uptight and frigid or some other nonsense, I’m just tired of this sort of idiocy being looked upon as something praiseworthy or even just discussion worthy. Swallow all the ejaculate you like for all I care, it’s just not that interesting).
Step right up! It finds you a job, it is a job!
P.S. Please stop typing “YMMV” at the end of 80% of the comments you leave. It’s superfluous.
“The fact that you can’t imagine someone not immediately following “swallowing” (I’m a poet) with “ejaculate” (or some crude term) says more about you than perhaps you imagine.”
Is mostly because this is the manosphere. The term had been used more than once in many of the sites that dalrock has in its blogroll, given that men use this polite term when there are ladies around, as a general rule. I was assuming she was joking and didn’t wanted to describe the term and ruin the joke.
“Did you mention having done web porn somewhere?”
????Me?!!! porn? I watched (and still do) porn both in magazines, video and DVD because I like it, no opinion in people that don’t like it, but I never did porn at any given point. The only persons that had seen me naked aside from my husband is my mother, some of my modeling friends, my designer and my doctors. Nothing in video or pics.
“How utterly banal, and what a load of horse manure about “swallowing” (tee hee) being preventative against pre-pre-eclampsia. If that’s so, it’s probably more indicative of requiring a better diet, not that somehow ejaculate is some magical potion.”
There is well documented research in sperm and how the mother immune system reacts to the baby, there is a link of oral sex playing a part in preventing it. So its not magic, is science.
“Several other studies have since investigated the strongly decreased incidence of pre-eclampsia in women who had received blood transfusions from their partner, those with long, preceding histories of sex without barrier contraceptives, and in women who had been regularly performing oral sex, with one study concluding “induction of allogeneic tolerance to the paternal human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules of the fetus may be crucial. Data collected strongly suggest that exposure, and especially oral exposure to soluble HLA from semen can lead to transplantation tolerance.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1803978.stm
http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2803%2900355-7/abstract
“P.S. Please stop typing “YMMV” at the end of 80% of the comments you leave. It’s superfluous.”
PS
Please stop reading my comments if this bothers you so much. I’m rather fond of my YMMV, you don’t need to talk to a “narcissist like me” in the web you know?, YMMV.
“There isn’t a difference between women who have & haven’t had children before.”
Pregnancy is one of the most changing experiences a woman bodies goes through, physically, hormonally, chemically….
Do a search in pregnancy and locate all the info about it. You will be surprised.
@A Lady
Thanks. I will do some searches and see if I get lucky. Thanks for the info 🙂
??? You are joking right?
No, not really. I did occur to me that you meant semen, but it seemed unlikely to me that there was a connection. As Thag implied, it isn’t necessarily the first thing that would come to the average woman’s mind. After giving the matter some thought, I did google semen and pre-eclampsia. Apparently the there was one that provided a link between the two. I don’t know what your science background is, but a single study is generally held to prove nothing. The idea of a link wouldn’t not be accepted by scientists until the study had been replicated again and again and until whatever chemical or nutrient in semen that affcted pre-eclampsia was actually identified and tested. If I had pre-eclampsia I’d rely on doctor’s advise as opposed to one study that might make BJs seem like an effective home remedy.
One theory is that it is vascular so as a woman ages her body is not as good at supplying oxygen to the uterus,
Or any other part of the body for that matter. Aging makes every bodily process more difficult.
this would affect both conception and various pregnancy difficulties.
Possibly.
If this theory is correct, there is no easy solution.
If this theory is correct, there is a very easy solution–vasodialators! I wish all infertility was that easy.
Also, am I understanding Thag correctly? Have you actually acted in internet porn? Or just googled some?
“Apparently the there was one that provided a link between the two.” should have read: Apparently, there was one study that provided a link between the two elements.
“No, not really. I did occur to me that you meant semen, but it seemed unlikely to me that there was a connection. As Thag implied, it isn’t necessarily the first thing that would come to the average woman’s mind.”
As I mentioned, in any other site I might take it as true statement, but in this blogroll they had been using the euphemism for quite a while. Anyway I’m sorry it seems that you are new so you didn’t knew.
“The idea of a link wouldn’t not be accepted by scientists until the study had been replicated again and again and until whatever chemical or nutrient in semen that affcted pre-eclampsia was actually identified and tested”
True. I think we had Dutch and Australian scientist with similar results, I’m not married to the idea but so far seems to be showing a strong correlation. I will be the first one to say the correlation doesn’t exist when some new studies debunk it.
“If I had pre-eclampsia I’d rely on doctor’s advise as opposed to one study that might make BJs seem like an effective home remedy.”
It was supposed to prevent pre-clampsia once you had it, of course the doctor is the only one that should appoint the correct treatment.
“Also, am I understanding Thag correctly? Have you actually acted in internet porn? Or just googled some?”
I have no idea what Thag is talking about to be frank. I haven’t done porn ever and even though I quite like it, I wouldn’t do it myself.
Well if you say you didn’t say that, I am mistaken, so I’ll take that bit back. The “study”, however, sounds like rubbish.
“Well if you say you didn’t say that, I am mistaken, so I’ll take that bit back.”
Okay.
“The “study”, however, sounds like rubbish.”
Fair enough.
they had been using the euphemism for quite a while. Anyway I’m sorry it seems that you are new so you didn’t knew.
No. I’m familiar with the euphemism; I was just surprised at the relationship between semen and pre-eclampsia prevention. It seemed unlikely. If you think about, semen more like a cause. ;-0
It was supposed to prevent pre-clampsia once you had it
Isn’t it too late then? Or do they mean that if if you had pre-clampsia in a first pregnancy, you should use it as a home rmedy in a second pregnancy?
“Isn’t it too late then? Or do they mean that if if you had pre-clampsia in a first pregnancy, you should use it as a home rmedy in a second pregnancy?”
I think the advice was along them lines to assimilate as much semen as possible before trying to get pregnant,so your body will adapt to the father’s DNA/immune by the time of pregnancy. Like folic acid, take a bit before start trying to get pregnant, to prevent it.
I do remember when the first study was released there were many jokes about, men looking for yet another excuse to get their wives to swallow “See sweetheart is for baby’s sake!” funny enough the main scientist is a woman. ;).
Ah, OK. You learn something new everyday.
@Stephanie
I meant with regards to ease of conceving at a given age. Prevoious pregnancies to not affect whether a woman will experience loss of fertility. Sorry for the confusion. yes it is a life changing experience in many ways I am familiar with. I’ve had 9 🙂
I meant with regards to ease of conceving at a given age. Prevoious pregnancies to not affect whether a woman will experience loss of fertility.
Is just a theory, but given that if you don’t use something in the body is usually harder when you try to use it I wouldn’t be surprised if conception at later age has something to do with the fact that in the past a woman wouldn’t spent more than 10 years before starting to conceive after her first period, a woman that has spent 20 + years menstruating with no trying to conceive is something unique in our history so far, but again is just a though.
“I’ve had 9 ”
Wow are you rich?! I wish I could have that many, sadly I’m poor at best I might be able to support 2.
Dragnet misunderstands, “I guess it doesn’t take much to bring the hisses out of the woodwork. Say one word about ‘geriatric pregnancy’ and in swoop the nattering nabobs of false equivalency to bang on about male infertility and the risks pertaining thereunto.
Correction: My information was not about hisses, infertility, and false equivalency. The information is for women interested in maximizing healthy babies, who should mate with young men.
«Why is it that upper-middle class families with 2 kids elect to get that BMW and excessive McMansion, rather than use that money for a 3rd kid. Apparently the BMW is an even ‘greater joy’ than a child. »
That’s precisely because children have gone from being an essential investment to being luxury consumption, competing with other luxury consumption items.
There is an extremely high correlation between pensions for women and decreasing number of children, because traditionally women (and men to a lesser degree) wanted to children (and grandchildren) to be supported in old age. The more children the more likely one or more of them could support their old mother (and father). Children, especially teenagers and older, can also be put to work
In China there is a large market for adoption of abducted/sold babies, and these adoptions often are by families that already have children; the rationale is that these increases the pool of potential old age supporters without requiring the woman to go through potentially dangerous multiple pregnancies.
If women have careers and pensions, even widower pensions (and most pensioners are women as most men die earlier) then going through the hard work of having pregnancies and raising children as a form of pensionable capital looks a lot less attractive, and only 1-2 will be enough, at most, as consumption items, and these will be long delayed when the woman thinks she can afford to splurge on such a luxury expense, after having got a car, a flat, travelled to exotic holidays, etc.
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My mom had my brother and me in her mid-40s. She was proud of the education, career, and life experiences she accumulated before she had children, but having us that late in life was extremely hard on her and on us. It was a huge factor in my decision to marry and have children in my early 20s because I didn’t want my children to have to go through what I did. It hurt to not know my grandparents because they were in their 70s when I was born, it hurt that my mom had no energy left in her 50s to play with us, it hurt to start worrying about nursing home care for my mom at 23, and it hurts knowing she likely won’t be alive to even meet all her grandchildren, much less watch them grow up. Those are just a handful of the many reasons childbearing late in life is not a good idea, and feminists do a great disservice to women and their children when they encourage it.
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I think it’s really first-time pregnancies that are the issue, since women with large families often have healthy pregnancies well past 40 (think Michelle Duggar.) Otherwise, God would make women experience menopause at 35 rather than 50.
This is great. The older mom’s and the writer here would likely be a part of the group that has gone over on autism being caused by vaccines. Meanwhile the ONLY actual correlation that has been truly proven is that older parents (both) but more so older moms correlate to autism incidence. Not vaccines, not phthalates, not Bisphenol A, not gluten, not genetically modified seed, not food grown that isn’t raised organically, not chicken that didn’t have its own soccer stadium in which to run free. There is neither a beneficial preventative correlation between eating edamame and humus and having a child with autism.
Well, there is another correlation. In the mornings, 1 in 110 kids are born with autism, and in the afternoon 1 in 88. I know I know that makes no sense. But the gubmit runs endless Ad Council ads where they chronicle the unlikely lives of celebrities and the chances they had at their successes, ending with a breathless, “The odds that boy would have a child born with autism…..1 in 110.
But they run 1/110 before lunch, and 1/88 after lunch. I can only conclude that if you are in labor, finish by noon, or hold on for 12 hours. (or ignore the ads all together because they are bunk)
My wife had our last at 39. Our first three between 24 and 30. What this article is supporting is the so common trend of new parents with a designer kid, dad with grey temples pushing a pram, the whole family surrounded by memory foam safety padding, These moms subscribe to everything I listed in the first paragraph, so she gushes with how “concerned” that mom is hence how healthy the children are.
Bette Midler and Billy Cristal would sort that crap out pronto.