Am I too old? While certain risks may rise with age, men continue to produce sperm throughout their lives and can father healthy children into old age.
There's no maximum age that stops a man from being able to have a baby. You can become a father long into your older years, but there are risks.
Although most men are able to have children well into their 50s and beyond, it becomes gradually more difficult after the age of 40 . There are many reasons for this, including: Sperm quality tends to decrease with age.
There's no expiration date on when guys can father a child. Case in point: Rocker Mick Jagger just had his eighth child at the age of 73. Since men don't hit menopause—the time in a woman's life where her fertility ends—they can typically continue to father children into their later years.
Of the roughly 4 million births each year in the U.S., about 9 percent of fathers are over 40. And "about 40,000 newborns have a father over the age of 50," says Michael Eisenberg, an assistant professor of urology at Stanford University Medical Center and the senior author of the study.
Pregnancy in Your 40s
If you get pregnant after 35 years old, experts call this an “advanced maternal age” pregnancy. But it's still possible to get pregnant and deliver a healthy baby in your 40s. Childbirth at older ages has become more common too. Since the 1990s, birth rates in people aged 40-44 have gone up.
The age where a man is most fertile is between 22 and 25 years. It is suggested to have children before the age of 35. After this age, the male fertility begins to worsen. After 35, the sperm might result in pregnancies where mutations can occur.
If you're pregnant at 41, 43, or older, you may understandably worry about how your age may impact your pregnancy. Luckily, while the risks of complications are lower in your 20s and 30s, you can have a healthy pregnancy in your 40s, particularly if you are otherwise in good health and get regular prenatal care.
The median age of all mothers for births registered in 2016 was 31.2 years, while the median age of fathers was 33.3 years.
In women 40 years or over , the risk of pregnancy complications, such as high blood pressure, preeclampsia, and gestational diabetes, increases. The rate of birth abnormalities or genetic conditions in the baby also increases.
Older women are more likely to miscarry or have a stillbirth. They have a greater chance of developing gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and of delivering a baby who is very small. Then there can be problems with labor, resulting in a higher chance of cesarean birth.
Men in their 40s: Many men in their 40s have chosen to be single, perhaps because they are in a job that makes it difficult to form long-term relationships, are newly divorced and happy to be “free,” or are simply unlucky in love and have decided that marriage and kids just aren't going to happen for them.
Among men, those younger than 30 are by far the most likely to be single: About half of men in this age group (51%) are single, compared with only 27% of those ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 and 21% of men 65 and older.
Most people over 40 have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. But there are some things you need to think about. You'll want to be sure to get good antenatal care.
As the father grows older, the number of mutations in the father's genome increases, leading to an increase in the incidence of congenital malformations in offspring [11, 65]. Older paternal age may be harmful to the offspring's health in terms of genetic mutations, telomere length, and epigenetics [66].
A recent study in the USA found that there are additional risks for the baby, demonstrating that fathers older than 45 had a 14 per cent greater chance of their babies being born prematurely and at low birth weight (each of which can cause long-term complications).
This may be one evolutionary, ultimate reason why older parents are more likely to have daughters. Parents may be evolutionarily designed to have more daughters when they are older, so that, when they die, they are less likely to leave sons who have not sexually matured.
After age 35, there's a higher risk of pregnancy-related complications that might lead to a C-section delivery. The risk of chromosomal conditions is higher. Babies born to older mothers have a higher risk of certain chromosomal conditions, such as Down syndrome. The risk of pregnancy loss is higher.
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.
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.
Age and sperm
Men younger than 40 have a better chance of fathering a child than those older than 40. The quality of the sperm men produce seems to decline as they get older. Most men make millions of new sperm every day, but men older than 40 have fewer healthy sperm than younger men.
Trends in Age at First Birth for Men and Women
The average age men become fathers is 27.4. The average age women become mothers is 24, consistent with findings from the U.S. Census Bureau (2011). Men, on average, are three years older than women when they become parents.
While fewer than 1 percent of first-time fathers are over 50, there are benefits to being a later-in-life father. Dr Paul Turek, a men's health and fertility urologist, says that men who have children at an older age tend to live longer.