A Necessary Timeline? A Look into Advanced Maternal Age Pregnancies Krystie Johnson, SRN Unitek College “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach,” W.E.B DuBois. If this statement is true, then one could say that becoming pregnant and starting a family later in life would be beneficial to the growth of a child. A woman over 35 would have lived more, had more life experience, and in most cases, be a more mature, stable person. However, society and medical books would say differently. As so many remind those creeping up on thirty who are childless about their “ticking biological clock”, we fight as a society to what is the norm and what is the best for our lives. So, what is a biological clock, and …show more content…
Within society there are many issues that are considered when one looks at maternal ages. To start, socio-economic, educational, and emotional are just a few factors that come into play. As an observer, I have seen every one of the above examples and the coordinating maternal ages. In seeing my mother, who became pregnant at sixteen, after dropping out of high school and then in the opposition, her sister, who graduated from college, waited until thirty-two to have her first child, and had her last at forty. During the years my mother was raising children she was growing up herself, all the while my aunt was traveling overseas, building a career, and establishing her life. The two examples had starkly different educational experiences and their maternal ages varied as well. Additionally, while my mother had four pregnancies with limited complications, my aunt had six, and many complications as her age advanced. As supported within research it is stated of the upcoming generation, “Millennials appear to exhibit a lag in adopting the activity patterns of predecessor generations due to delayed lifecycle milestones (e.g. completing their education, getting jobs, marrying, and having children) and lingering
As women move to there 30s and late 40s, the risks are prematurity, fetal death, Down syndrome, and complications during birth.
152) required their reproduction and choosing to be childless was “non-normative” (p. 152). One participant believed that choosing to remain childless would be more readily accepted by those that did not intimately know him and viewed more negatively by those closest to him (p. 151). I feel this is a very apt assessment of society’s views on childlessness; it is easy to justify the projection of one’s personal beliefs onto someone that we closely know as opposed to a stranger. However, I also believe it depends on the projecting person’s ideas about social norms. I know several single and married couples that have decided to either delay childbearing or refrain altogether and I find no fault in their decision. I do not necessarily believe that it is imperative a person and/or couple have children. Nevertheless, I believe the subject belongs in the “Spouses-Only Area” (Hammond, Cheney, & Pearsey, 2015), and is not one I should pass judgment on. People should be allowed to make a decision that best suits them and not judged or pressured to fit some preconceived mold or
Having children in early age means giving yourself an opportunity to enjoy long time with your grandchildren.
Lifestyle of parents can have effect on child’s potential development and this is because men’s sperm and women’s ova can be very easily damaged. Those who are planning a child is recommended: quitting smoking, avoiding alcohol and drugs, use of folic acid. It is also recommended not too late to plan a child because of age, it is harder to get pregnant, and
In short, Robin W. Simon’s article “Bundle of Trouble” provides ample evidence that parenthood has several emotional benefits, but some of these benefits are overshadowed by the financial, emotional, and social disadvantages associated with parenting. I recommend this article to individuals who are planning to have children because it might help them make more informed
Many women at this age have babies and often times since their bodies are not fully developed, the women have trouble during pregnancy. What happens during the pregnancy is that their hips are not big enough to give birth, which can cause complications. These young women are not knowledgeable about pregancry due to the lack of education. Being married and pregnant at such a young age, these young women need to become an adult whether they are ready to or not because the women need to in order to provide for a family. Many people come from the United States of America to Guatemala to give birth to women either at a hospital or in their homes. (New York
Through the use of personal anecdotes, McKibben argues that adults today should not be pressured to have a large family or create the stigma of an only child being a spoiled brat. He begins his essay with a trip to the doctor's office in which he is thrown an abundance of questions about the circumstances of having more children, for example, “Would more children be in your picture now if your financial circumstances improved significantly?” (119). By the use of these various personal anecdotes, this supports his argument of plausible reasons why adults decide not to have children and why it is better to have a few. Adults in the 21st century are just too busy, are career focused, or are simply not ready to take that route. He emphasizes that
THE NO-BABY BOOM, by Anne Kingston, published in March 2014 was about the social infertility rates of twenty-first century women. Kingston uses credible evidence that shows that she wants to promote awareness and change the perception of how society views the topic of infertility. The way Kingston presents the information to the reader is by providing statistics, personal stories, and her personal opinion on the idea of the “childless” mother. Readers this is most likely to appeal to is people who are struggling with infertility. The concern and values throughout this article is the infertility rate of women and the way it affects their life styles. The reason that Kingston published this article is to let people become more aware of the
Approximately 20% of women are waiting to start a family until after the age of 35. Some women are waiting to accomplish their career and educational goals,
Aging is a natural occurrence in a human being life. As human’s age and transition into adulthood little attention is given to retirement, rather individuals focus on individual decisions, such as going to college, starting a family, buying a home and other individual choices. Often times, as individuals age so do their social roles and identities, for instance a student, sister, daughter, wife, and mother. Hence, in society there is an age norm in which a society assigns roles and division of labor based on age. Thus, a key component to age norms is timing an appropriate age to marry, have a child and retirement. Furthermore, specifically aging women engage in the social clock that orders major events like marriage, having children
However, Blackstone and Stewart (2016) provide lucidity through comprehensive considerations of previous research, which examined the process by which individuals decide to have children, with the intent to provide insight into many individuals’ decision to remain childfree. Furthermore, Blackstone and Stewart (2016) continued to identify insufficiencies in prior research throughout their article, as they recognized that many former researchers primarily focused on women’s experiences rather than men’s and typically explored why couples’ have chosen to remain childfree rather than how they have reached their decision to remain childfree (Agrillo & Nelini, 2008; Clausen, 2002; Gillespie, 2003; Houseknecht, 1982; Letherby, 2002; Edin & Kefalas, 2011; Hertz, 2006; Mollen, 2006; Mueller & Yoder, 1999; Park, 2005; Settle & Brumley, 2014; Lunneborg,
Many people say that having a baby at a young age can ruin our lives. I would like to differ, I believe a baby does not ruin our lives. I think that if a teenager has a baby and wants to keep moving forward with life and school we will put our children first, but if a teen has a baby and decides to drop out of school than that is where the parent messes up not the baby. A baby does not choose to be created and be brought into this world, it is us make the decision. When I had my baby I made an oath to never drop out of school even when times got rough. I made an oath to finish high school and go to college so that I could provide a better life for my baby.
There are many reasons and scenarios to why people may have difficulties in raising a child. Financial reasons may be one of the major reasons people consider abortions or adoptions. It cost a fairly decent amount of money to raise a child and provide for it. In some tragic cases women decide to have an abortion or an adoption due to rape. In such a case it is almost conceivable to consider that as being an exception. Premarital relations and teenage pregnancies are other reasons as to why one would choose either of these alternatives. No teenager wants to be a parent or be forced to grow up while they are still in their youth. In today’s society, the
The trends in maternal age are changing, and with an increasing number of children being raised by older mothers, the questions regarding the impact on children’s development are being raised. Studies have shown how parents’ ages impact their children positively and negatively. Research proposes that children of older parents have an increased risk of Down syndrome, schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder, (Moisse, 2015). However, other findings advocate the other end of the spectrum, proposing that mothers of older maternal age are more mature and provide better educational and health support for their children, (Max Planck, 2016). This study investigates the effects of maternal age on children and whether the outcomes are hindering or beneficial.
A woman is at her most fertile when she is in the ages 20 to 24. Infertility is generally defined as the inability to conceive after one year of unprotected sex. At the age of 30 fertility starts to gradually decline, the chance of successfully conceiving each cycle drops from 22% to just 6 to 8% between 30 and 40 years of age. This big drop in fertility is due to the ageing of a female’s eggs. When born women have around a million eggs, by the time they reach their mid-thirties this number will have dropped to around 25,000. Unfortunately, a woman’s best quality eggs will likely have been used up when younger, meaning the ones left over are of a worse quality and therefore less fertile. Women also release fewer eggs when they get older. In terms of successful IVF treatment (which is more often used by older women), for women under 35 years the success rate is around 27%, but for women over 40 years old that drops to as low as 6%. The graph to the left shows the general trend in the drop in fertility, backing up what was said earlier, and further backed up by Benjamin Younger, the executive director of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. He states that fertility continues to decline after the age of 35 but takes a nosedive at the age of 38. Clearly fertility is something to be worried about, and looking at these stats it is well worth getting pregnant younger in order to have a better chance of getting pregnant and also having good quality eggs still.