Babies born to older mothers have a higher risk of certain chromosomal conditions, such as Down syndrome. The risk of pregnancy loss is higher. The risk of miscarriage and stillbirth increases with age. This may be because of preexisting medical conditions or because of chromosomal conditions in the baby.
A woman in her early to mid-20s has a 25–30% chance of getting pregnant every month. Fertility generally starts to reduce when a woman is in her early 30s, and more so after the age of 35. By age 40, the chance of getting pregnant in any monthly cycle is around 5%.
Overall, the risk of a child being developmentally vulnerable decreases as maternal age increases, until a certain point. Once a mother becomes 35 the risk of their child being developmentally vulnerable increases with maternal age, roughly equivalent to the risk for children born to mothers in their early 20s.
In the United States, birth rates for women in their 30s are at the highest levels in three decades. However, an older mother may be at increased risk for miscarriage, birth defects, and pregnancy complications such as twins, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, and difficult labors.
A known risk factor for Down syndrome is increasing maternal age. As seen in Figure 4, women who are 35 to 39 years old are approximately 4.5 times more likely to have a child with Down syndrome compared with women in the 25 to 29 age group. This risk increases to 15.7 for mothers age 40 years or older.
On first look, children born to mothers over 35 did appear less healthy as adults than those born to 25- to 34-year-old moms. Over the 10-year study, the children of older moms were more likely to be obese or die. They also rated their overall health as lower, on average.
Pregnancy Risks in Advanced Maternal Age
Your chance of miscarriage is increased, along with an increased risk of developing gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and having a child that is preterm. You are also at risk for conceiving a child who has a chromosomal abnormality, such as Down's syndrome.
The infant of a mother under the age of 18 is 60% more likely to die in its first year of life. Stillbirths and newborn deaths are 50% higher among infants born to adolescent mothers than among those born to mothers aged 20-29 years.
This is because a woman's eggs age as she ages. Older eggs are more prone to forming embryos with either too many or too few chromosomes. This is the reason why older women have a greater rate for infertility, miscarriages and babies with chromosomal birth defects.
If you're 35 years old or older and pregnant, you're considered to be of advanced maternal age, or AMA. This can put your pregnancy in the high-risk category for a number of reasons, including an increased risk of complications for you and your baby.
Geriatric pregnancy is a rarely used term for having a baby when you're 35 or older. Rest assured, most healthy women who get pregnant after age 35 and even into their 40s have healthy babies.
Down syndrome incidence in humans increases dramatically with maternal age. This is mainly the result of increased meiotic errors, but factors such as differences in abortion rate may play a role as well.
Contrary to prediction, daughters born to older mothers had greater annual reproductive success on average than daughters born to younger mothers, and this translated into greater lifetime reproductive success.
Many empirical studies suggest that higher maternal age increases the likelihood of having an autistic child. However, little is known about factors that may explain this relationship or if higher maternal age is related to the number of autistic-like traits in offspring.
Down syndrome occurs in people of all races and economic levels. The risk increases with the mother's age (1 in 1250 for a 25 year old mother to 1 in 1000 at age 31, 1 in 400 at age 35, and about 1 in 100 at age 40). However, 80% of babies with Down syndrome are born to women under age 35 years.
Women who become pregnant in their 30s and early 40s can have safe, healthy pregnancies, says Ellie Ragsdale, MD, director of fetal intervention at UH Cleveland Medical Center. But they do face a higher risk of some problems.
If you are thinking about having a baby in your late thirties or early forties, you are not alone. Women ages 35-45 are increasingly becoming first-time moms. And most healthy women in this age group have healthy pregnancies, births and babies.
The researchers examined several different measures that represent how a person's body is aging and found that people who had few births -- or many -- seemed to have aged quicker than those who had given birth three or four times. However, these effects were found only after a person had gone through menopause.
Adolescent mothers (aged 10–19 years) face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis and systemic infections than women aged 20–24 years, and babies of adolescent mothers face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm birth and severe neonatal condition.
The results show that older mothers were happier than younger mothers and indicate that parental meaning and perceived social support had a positive effect on the happiness of both younger and older mothers.
In particular, evidence on the association between maternal age and children's cognitive ability is mixed. Some studies, before adjustment for parental characteristics, have documented a positive association between advanced maternal age and children's cognitive ability,8–10 whereas others found a negative association.
If you're older than 35 and hoping to get pregnant, you're in good company. Many families are delaying pregnancy well into their 30s and beyond — and delivering healthy babies. Taking special care can help give your baby the best start.