Posted on 09/16/2005 5:14:37 PM PDT by 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."
Not to mention the love you could share amongst yourselves, why are you so certain your children couldn't achieve a better life than you did?
Let's not forget about who the age difference means the most to - the kids. I want to go golfing with my kids when they are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s - not be dead while they go golfing. I want to be young enough to enjoy grandchildren, not be just a memory told to them by their parents. Personally, I think the problem is that kids have not picked up responsibility at the same rate as their forefathers - it seems that for many, childhood doesn't end until the kids are 25, a few years out of college and perhaps picking up their first job. This then delays their entry into the world of grownups, marriage, childrearing and so on. My opinion is that the best age to have kids at is 25.
I think younger is better. You do have more energy, and then as you get older, you have older children to help watch the young ones (depending on how many you have!). If you have them when you're young, you're still young when they're grown and then you can go on to the next step in your life.
When I lived in NYC, I worked with women in their mid-forties who were having their first child. They had major careers going, so most of them (even those who had spent a fortune on fertility treatments) immediately left the kids with a minimally English-speaking "nanny" (aka, cheap immmigrant help) and went back to their former lives as if the child had been a momentary blip. Granted, it was better for them to have children than not to have children, but if you're thinking in terms of quality of life and you have the option to have kids while you are younger, go for it!
Because most of the people I know and have known have less than I.
Because: love. and despite everything life is beautiful.
("what a wonderful world" by Louie should be playing in the background right about now ; )
Thanks! Mine are G-14, B-11, B-8, G-7, G-5, B-3, and B-1.
Maybe you're depressed and should consider counseling.
Well I guess you'll have to go on assuming you were right, since you never took the chance to find out.
80% of Downs babies are shredded to death in the womb now. They don't make it out alive.
Several of the few I knew who tried, found themselves in court and kids in jail and supporting their grand kids.
This country (world) is just going nuts!
There are indeed natural laws? Who would have denied such? Oh yes, those who have alternative agendas.
Hey, it's not a problem if American women want to put off childbirth until it's too late - we are importing plenty of young mothers from Mexico. ;)
I think you have answered your own question from post #18:
But being a normal working person that looks forward to retirement at around 70, why would someone want to pass this life style on????????
Your just selfish. You think "things" are more important than passing along your own genes. It's not natural.
I seem to recall something like that, too. On the other hand, it's probably safer to blame employers and "health planners," whatever those are, than to challenge the feminist establishment.
People just aren't ready to make the sacrifice that having children entails. They're often too selfish. I've had friends that so seemed to resent the way the children THEY chose to have interfered with their lifestyle and seemed surprised that it happened. Well, no duh! When you have kids, a lot has to go on the back burner. It comes with the territory but it doesn't last forever. We have three wonderful kids and I wish we could have had more but it just didn't work out. Good for you for not letting anyone dictate your family size.
Marrying age used to be 15-16 the world around, just a few years ago, now we treat 16 yrs olds, that have the emotion of real love and feel great sexual tension within themselves, like they are little kids. Although social expectations have changed, biology has not, & teenage women & men are having a ball anyway. We should just see it, say it, accept the reality of it, and adjust the way society treats 15, 16 & 17 year olds. They are not children.
"Hey, it's not a problem if American women want to put off childbirth until it's too late - we are importing plenty of young mothers from Mexico. ;)"
Which is why Bush is not stopping the flood across the border. People like me quit procreating.
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