Pregnancy: Is It for All Ages? Essay

As women move to there 30s and late 40s, the risks are prematurity, fetal death, Down syndrome, and complications during birth.

. Down syndrome is not a disease that someone catches and is not caused by difficulties during the pregnancy, it is a genetic condition. This condition is caused by the presence of an extra chromosome in the body’s cells and causes a redundant amount of proteins to be formed. All cells of the body derive from a single cell formed by the fusion of a father’s sperm and a mother’s egg. Each cell carries a nucleus full of genetic material known as genes. These genes are inherited from both the mother and father. Each cell normally contains 46 pairs of chromosomes. 23 chromosomes come from one parent and 23 from the other, hence the 46 pairs. When it comes to children with down syndrome, one of the chromosomes does not separate properly and so the

There are many risks associated with parental-age; including the increased likelihood of being pregnant with multiples, high blood pressure, hypertension and gestational diabetes. Consequently, these risks can cause the premature delivery of a baby with a low-birth weight (The American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists 2015; March of Dimes 2017; Evidence Based Birth 2017). Women aged 40 are also susceptible to have a 51% chance of a spontaneous miscarriage and are two and-a-half times as likely to have a stillborn baby (Birth Injury Justice.org 2017); compared to a 22 year old with 8.7% (Birth Injury Justice.org 2017; Evidence Based Birth 2017). The miscarriage rates are higher in older women as they occur within the half of the first trimester due to genetic problems including Down syndrome; as 1 in 53 at the age of 40 have a baby with a genetic disorder, compared to 1 in 1064 at 25 (Evidence Based Birth 2017).

Risk of down syndrome can be evaluated by screening for presence of serum alpha –

3.2 Belief and attitude barriers: this subcategory includes: some, Believe barriers, and Barriers value: Shame on women due to age and gravid is one of barriers that could be affected preconception care utilization. Participant number 3 (42 years old) said:" With this Age, it will be ashamed to go to the Clinic and said we wanted to be pregnant"

gestational age, and other medical issues (Tin & Gupta, 2007). The question is because many

Pregnancy Prevention Introduction: Pregnancy is not always a planned or wanted event in peoples lives, and so we have man made ways to prevent pregnancy from happening. Everyone has the freedom of choice, both male and female, so therefore there are both male and female methods of contraception. There is an expansive range of contraception methods world wide, and they can be as extreme as being operated on, such as having a tubal ligation or a vasectomy. The more minor options are using condoms or taking a type of contraceptive pill.

Children are our future; our future scientists, doctors, teachers, president and so much more. It is hard not to notice the number of young parents nowadays that have children. the average age range for mothers giving birth is 20-34. With the current up rise of babies being born to young mothers, I could not help but think about how age plays a factor into birth effects. Down syndrome is the most common single cause of human birth defects. The most common form of Down syndrome is known as trisomy 21, a genetic condition where individuals have 47 chromosomes in each cell instead of 46. Trisomy 21 is caused by an error in cell division called nondisjunction, which leaves a sperm or egg cell with an extra copy of chromosome 21 before or at conception.

The social scenario is also changing with more and more older women coming for IVF.

In the past this may have been considered a dangerous trend. We know that older women are likely to have more complications during pregnancy and older parents are more likely to have children with birth defects such as Down syndrome and Autism; however, we also know that money (great insurance) and modern medicine not only make it possible to detect certain defects early, but also offer parents-to-be more

117 of having a baby with Down's; at 40, her odds are 1 in 34. (Graves, 1990)

Also, there is a greater risk of a child having Down syndrome if the mother is over 35 years old.

"Over one million teenage girls become pregnant each year. In the next 24 hours, about 3,312 girls will become pregnant. In addition, 43% of all adolescents become pregnant before the age of 20. These are incredible statistics when you consider that there are only 31 million females. The United States has the highest adolescent pregnancy rate in the developed world. As statistics show one in nine women between the ages of 15 through 19 become pregnant each year. Also, every 26 seconds a teenage girl becomes pregnant and every 56 seconds a child of a teenage mother is born."

“A baby with a baby?” That is what most people say, or think, when they hear about the pregnancy of an adolescent girl. Early pregnancy, commonly referred to as teenage pregnancy, is an ongoing crisis throughout the world. However, the United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the world. Since its peak in 1990, teen pregnancy rates have declined by half, but they are still fairly high. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, “roughly one in four teens girls in the U.S. will get pregnant at least once by the age of twenty” (The National Campaign 1). One could place the blame solely on the teenagers and their “raging hormones” for getting pregnant, but that is simply not the case.

The teen pregnancy rate had decreased by the maximum of about 55 percent. Most teen birth rates had also gone down about 64 percent, but yet teen pregnancies and birth rate for teenagers ages 15-19 in the U.S still remains one of the highest comparable countries. Due to parenthood, most of teen moms drop out of school. More than 50% of teen mothers never graduate to get their diploma. Sexually active teens that don’t use any type of protection has a 90 percent chance of becoming pregnant within a year, 84 percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned.