50 became the new 40 for motherhood

13.03.2015

Before singer Sophie B. Hawkins, who already has a 6-year-old son, decided to have another baby at 50, she admits, her age made her think more than twice about the humongous and life-changing step.

But now Hawkins became part of a small but growing trend of women doing what was unthinkable only a few decades ago: becoming moms at age 50 and beyond.

According to statistics, in 2013, an average of 13 children were born every week to mothers 50 years and older. In 2012, women 50 and older had 600 babies, up from 144 births in 1997, based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF).

Those numbers even don’t take into account the women, who become mothers through adoption or surrogacy, women like Deborah, who had a child “close to 50,” she says. She used a surrogate after she learned through in vitro fertilization that she could get pregnant but could not carry a child to term.

A few years later, Deborah, who wanted to use only her first name for this article, had another child after her surrogate offered to carry and deliver a second baby for her and her husband.

When 40-plus moms were front page news

Dr. Mark Sauer, vice chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center, is one of the early pioneers of using in vitro fertilization with older women. When he published a study in 1990 in the New England Journal of Medicine about his work impregnating 40-year-old women, it became an international event, he says.

Twenty-five years later, Americans seem more comfortable with IVF in general and with women getting pregnant in their 40s, Sauer said. There are also signs, namely in the medical field, that people are growing more accustomed to women having children at 50 and older, he said.

He cites how some 30-year-old residents at the hospital sometimes don’t even mention deliveries overnight by women 50 and above in the morning reports, because “it’s so commonplace.”

The challenges to midlife mothering

Becoming a mother at 50 or older is certainly not a decision that most women approach lightly.

Whose women who want to get pregnant, they’ll probably need to rely on IVF and use egg donations, unless they froze embryos at a younger age. IVF with an egg donation could cost as much as $25,000 to $30,000 for a single attempt.

Only the older the woman is, the greater the health risks of hypertension, diabetes and even death, medical experts say. There are some health risks to the child too.

There are immense challenges for women who become mothers through adoption and surrogacy later in life, too. But there are plenty of upsides to becoming a mother later in life, women say. Topping the list is experience.

Source: wtvr.com