Putting off childbirth defies nature, claim doctors

Scotsman ^ | 9/16/05 | Louise Gray

[Crackingham]

Women should have a family first - before they are 35 - and leave their career until later, a group of leading doctors said yesterday. The obstetricians and gynaecologists said the increasing number of women delaying having children were defying nature and risking heartbreak. Writing in the British Medical Journal, they recommended that if women wanted families and a career, they should have children earlier, and called for more support for younger mothers. Women's groups voiced caution over putting a deadline on childbirth but agreed on the need for more support.

Susan Bewley, consultant obstetrician at St Thomas' Hospital in London, said the doctors were motivated by the number of older women they saw experiencing problems in childbirth. She said: "It is us in the clinic who see the heartbreak, and we cannot help these people when they are running out of time. That is what motivated me to write [the report] and ask the authorities what can be done to help women to do it at a time that suits them."

In Scotland the most common age for giving birth is now 30 to 34. There has also been a steady rise in the proportion of mothers aged 35-plus, from 6 per cent in 1976 to 18.8 per cent last year.

But Dr Bewley said the optimum age to have a child remained between the ages of 20 and 35. She said: "Each woman finds her own solution but we cannot kid ourselves having children at 35 is easy. It is not. It goes wrong for lots of people."

The strongly worded editorial, co-authored by Melanie Davies, a consultant obstetrician from University College hospital, and Peter Braude, head of the department of women's health at St Thomas', pointed out age-related fertility problems increased after the age of 35, and dramatically so after 40.

The editorial claimed employers and health planners were to blame for encouraging women to delay motherhood to focus on careers and financial stability. It called for government and companies to make it easier for women to choose to have children at a younger age, and said: "Free choices cannot be made with partial knowledge, economic disadvantage for mothers, and unsupportive workplaces.

"Doctors and healthcare planners need to grasp this threat to public health and support women to achieve biologically optimal childbearing."

The experts listed a number of complications linked to later motherhood, including pre-eclampsia and increased risk of miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies.

They also said that older fathers had decreased fertility, while children of older men had an increased risk of schizophrenia and several genetic disorders.

They wrote: "Women want to 'have it all' but biology is unchanged, deferring defies nature and risks heartbreak. If women want room for manoeuvre they are unwise to wait till their thirties."

Dr Bewley added: "You cannot suddenly emerge at 45 and say, 'Now I want children'. I appreciate we want it all and some will get it. But there is a window for reproduction where there isn't for work."

[laney]

Since I live near Santa Barbara I know what the housing costs are and at 22, hard for me to believe that one is holding down a mortgage unless he inherited millions or he is in a Professional Career and at 22 I doubt that.

BTW: Property in Ventura Co is proably close to one million to start.

[nopardons]

Not in 1957 onwards, they weren't running adds for washers and dryers and vacuums and other household appliances, they weren't! I can't speak for previous years; but when I was reading SEVENTEEN, no such a thing, as you're talking about was run in that magazine.

[William Terrell]

My girlfriend's father made six figures. He was one of 7 children raised by sharecroppers in the Mississippi delta.