It has been the trend for a while now for women to have babies in their 30s instead of in their 20s. The question that needs to be answered is if older parenthood involves more risks with women’s health, pregnancy, and birth. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), birth rates among women aged 30-34 exceeded those women aged 25-29 in the US in 2016 and this is the first time this happened in thirty years.
Currently, the average age for women who are having their first child is 28 years of age. In 2015 it was 26.4 and in 2014 it was 26.3. Experts mostly focus on the average or mean maternal age because of the birth outcomes that are linked with the age of the mother like multiple births and congenital disabilities.
Studies have reported that people may postpone parenthood until 35 or older for many reasons. These reasons consists of women achieving higher levels of
…show more content…
Individual life circumstances and behavioural choices are supposed to be considered more than age.
There are pros and cons for delaying parenthood. For those who prefer to postpone parenthood, consider factors such as declining fertility and higher risks of miscarriage and birth complications. Stillbirths may be rare, but the risk is still greater for older women and it even increases during the last weeks of pregnancy.
The advantages of delaying motherhood until after age 35 are there are fewer behavioral, social, and emotional difficulties for children of older mothers. According to another study conducted by the same researchers, being born later is also linked with being healthier, taller, and getting more education.
Regardless of the risks, most women who are 35 and above are more likely to have a normal pregnancy accompanied by a few birth complications, and continue to giving birth to healthy
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
In 1950, were approximately 3.5 million births with women having an average of 3.8 children (“Measuring childbearing patterns in the United States 2010”.) As of the 2010 women on average have 1.9 children. This
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).
If you are pregnant and still in high school, college, or unemployed the thought of having a child is scary. Thoughts of how you would be able to manage your pregnancy and still take care of your responsibilities will go through your head. No child should be brought into this world and not be taking care of. A federal study has been found that 22,000 babies after left in a hospital every year because parents are unable to take care of them. “A survey taken in September of 2005 on peer-reviewed journal Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health asking women why they would have an abortion studies found that 73% of participants said they could not afford to have a baby, and 38% claimed giving birth would interfere with their education and career
More women in the U.S. are trying to make themselves more skinny which makes pregnancy a very dangerous thing for women. Young women have the highest risk factor of death during pregnancy or childbirth. Yes, few mothers are in actual danger if they have a child that is most definitely true but that doesn't mean that we can just disregard those that are because they need to be recognized.
There are 61 million U.S. women in their childbearing years at risk of unplanned pregnancy. The risk is greatest among 15-19 year olds (18%).
Many people who have married each other find out many months later that the one that they are with just was not the one who they will love forever and be with forever. If they had chosen to have a child then the child will have to deal with parents who are trying to find a new couple and may even do it all over again. Also disease is not a joke that goes away over a wish people are born with genetic diseases that will transfer over to their child. My opinion of remaining childfree goes along with the author Kelly W. Who has strong evidence towards the thought of remaining childfree by
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
Babies already decided beforehand to happen to high school moms will probably be a preemie understood/created before 40 weeks of common pregnancy term. Pre-term children are effectively ready to be hurt or affected by different medicinal conditions, for example, apnoea spells breathing sickness, issue because of young brain. More than that, the rate of newborn child passings is higher among infants (already decided beforehand to happen) to young moms contrasted with those understood/created with adult mothers. Long-lasting through medicine/healing issues and low conception weight are other likely issues in children (already decided beforehand to happen) to a teen mother.Because of questions about the future and not being there of backing in
known risk factor is advanced maternal age-at age 35, a woman has 1 chance in
With more time being spent in work and education, it leaves less opportunity to find the perfect man to settle down with and have a family. Increasingly, women are using the option of freezing their eggs as a safety net, allowing them to give birth when their biological clock is telling them otherwise. This is also a common method for females who have their first baby at a mature age and are determined to have more than one. Egg freezing will increase the likeliness of this, even after they reach the
In today’s society men and women are choosing to wait to have children until later in life. Much of this is due to the fact that the culture is changing. People don’t want to have children right away because they don’t want to settle down and have a family. They would rather travel the world or start a career, but what they don’t know is that this can have costly effects on their children by having them later on in life. Paternal and maternal age at conception can have many negative effects on the child's life. Some of the effects include shortened longevity, cell mutations, and diseases. The idea that the parents age can possibly affect their offspring was first inspired by a French naturalist who stated that when older men procreate they create deformed and “devil” children. Although calling a child a devil is a bit harsh, the naturalist was not to far of when he used the word deformed.
Also, there is a greater risk of a child having Down syndrome if the mother is over 35 years old.
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.
One of the major concerns of having a child or becoming a parent is to do so when you're old and mature enough to take on the responsibility. One of the problems in today's