Old Ladies Having Babies

gvkk · Nov 19, 2004

I am 57, Tuesday I will be 58. Does that make me a second class citizen?

And, by the way - when you are 58, will you want someone wo call you an old woman?

And yes, I have a very nice looking, happy, healthy and bright 10 year old who is very happy to be alive. Today he was running all over the house yelling and laughing at the top of his voice playing with his friends. Tonight he is with his friends and their mom having a fun time.

I think in short, my son has learned that he is happy to be alive. And I am very glad I have the privilege of having him for my son.

Oh, and by the way, I always did look young for my age, but I think I'll have plastic surgery when I get old-"er". Why not???

live4today, RN · Nov 19, 2004

why why why are women so cruel to each other? why do women put each other down? why do women age themselves by the chronological age of 30? 40? 50? :confused: why o' why o' why!!! :angryfire

i am soooooooo sick of females ragging on each other over choices we make as women. if a man has a child at 50, dates women young enough to be there children and/or grandchildren, has a reputation for being a womanizer.................women may say "tsk tsk" or laugh, or think it's cute or whatever, but when women do those things, we are known as sluts, old geezers, old farts, old women who shouldn't do this or that or live this way or that way. :rolleyes:

i find it soooooooooo ironic that for years now women have screamed for equality among men. what does that mean women???? what?:stone

if it wasn't meant for women to conceive at fifty, it wouldn't happen no matter what. nowhere in the holy bible does it say "women shouldn't have babies after 30 or 35", or "women shouldn't date or marry men younger than they are". :uhoh3:

how many women who post here are married to old farts much older than they are, and are having babies with these men?

why can't we be more encouraging and supportive of one another as women? why must we nag at each other, put each other down, and point fingers as if our shick doesn't stink in some way, shape, or form?

what's this all about women? will somebody pleezzz tell me! :uhoh3:

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Nov 19, 2004

Why haven't we seen the articles over "babies having babies". We have. The media sees it as old news, since it's so common now.

allnurses Guide · Nov 20, 2004

Cheerfuldoer darlin!!! You are so right. You said it just the way I've been feeling it! :)

Thank you.

steph

Vanfnp · Nov 20, 2004

If the good Lord chose to bless me with a child at the advanced age of 41-I would be thrilled, more than thrilled. I hope he does! Should it happen however, no media will be allowed to turn the miracle into a three ring circus.

live4today, RN · Nov 20, 2004

stevielynn: "cheerfuldoer darlin!!! you are so right. you said it just the way i've been feeling it! :) "

thank you.

steph

vanrn: "if the good lord chose to bless me with a child at the advanced age of 41-i would be thrilled, more than thrilled. i hope he does! should it happen however, no media will be allowed to turn the miracle into a three ring circus."

amen sisters! :kiss

dawngloves, BSN, RN · Nov 20, 2004

I'm sorry if it seems like I am making blanket staments. I am making statistical statments. Elder gravida pts, and yes it is medically correct to call anyone over the age of 35 an elder gravida, have a higher risk of many life threatening, pregnancy induced conditions.

If a 50 year old wants to juice up on estrogen and toss a couple of her old, brittle eggs into her uterus, fine.If you want to risk your life to bear children, rock on sister. It's a free country. But here I am at the other end waiting to take care of your 29 week trisomy 21 baby and having to spend the next 6 weeks listening to you agonize over your choice and biting my tounge the whole time.

Now,guess how you'll be spending your "Golden Years"?

KRVRN, BSN, RN · Nov 20, 2004

I've seen a lot of anger at people making "blanket statements." That's what this is all about though. We all have a feeling or an opinion on this topic. Of course we could never discuss every single woman and every single baby born to an older mom out there. Therefore all we can really state is our opinions on the topic. A lot of us have seen outcomes of older moms enough that we can generalize what we've seen. I fail to see how this is wrong.

For every story about an older woman (and barring donor eggs 40-something is old and 50 is far too old to be conceiving) that had a bad outcome with her pregnancy or died too early in her child's life, another person has a story about a 40-50 year old woman that had a fantastic pregnancy, perfect baby and lived to be 100.

We're all stating opinions and many of us are basing it on what we personally have seen. Many of us are not stating a firm statistic but instead are generalizing what we've seen before. So what's the problem with blanket statements?

My opinion is that an older woman should not conceive a child. Yes, women are healthier and living longer but that doesn't change the fact that eggs age and anomalies are more common with advanced age. That's a blanket statement. Yes, it's possible that a child of a 50 year old woman will be completely normal but I wouldn't do it myself because I feel that the risk of anomalies is too great.

As for the issue of babies having babies, some posters have seemed irritated that we would not condone a 50 year old woman conceiving a child but yet would say nothing about a 14 year old. That's not exactly accurate... there are certainly more than one thread around where we all got riled up over that issue too!

VizslaMom · Nov 20, 2004

I'm sorry if it seems like I am making blanket staments. I am making statistical statments. Elder gravida pts, and yes it is medically correct to call anyone over the age of 35 an elder gravida, have a higher risk of many life threatening, pregnancy induced conditions.
If a 50 year old wants to juice up on estrogen and toss a couple of her old, brittle eggs into her uterus, fine.If you want to risk your life to bear children, rock on sister. It's a free country. But here I am at the other end waiting to take care of your 29 week trisomy 21 baby and having to spend the next 6 weeks listening to you agonize over your choice and biting my tounge the whole time.
Now,guess how you'll be spending your "Golden Years"?

I agree that it's chancey at best when a woman in her 40's and 50's conceives with her own eggs. The first thing I think of is Down's Syndrome. However, the donor eggs that were used by the 57 year old in New York were probly that of a woman in her early to mid-twenties.

dawngloves, BSN, RN · Nov 20, 2004

I agree that it's chancey at best when a woman in her 40's and 50's conceives with her own eggs. The first thing I think of is Down's Syndrome. However, the donor eggs that were used by the 57 year old in New York were probly that of a woman in her early to mid-twenties.

Your right. So the risk of genetic anomolies is probably not a factor in most cases.But then on top of being older, you have the fact that IVF increase your chance of multiples and all three of these factors are a huge influence on PTL, to say the least.

tntrn, ASN, RN · Nov 20, 2004

My feelings are mixed on the subject of "old women having babies." On the one hand, if a pregnancy occurs naturally, without the aid of technology, then so be it. At that point, it is and should be up to the woman as to how she handles that.

On the other hand, doing anything and everything possible to impregnate a woman 50 or over just doesn't seem right to me, in part, because at nearly 56 years of age, I am SOOOOOOO happy my children are adults, paying their own bills, and hopefully will bring grandbabies around some day.

And I believe this for men as well. My DH has a friend of almost 40 years who is nearly 60, just announced to us that his 30-something wife is pregnant for the 3rd time in 6 years. AND he's got two teen-aged daughters. He thinks it's cute. He's not a particularly healthy person, and oh! just lost his medical insurance. The friendship for them has changed a lot, sadly, because the friend must (try to) blend daddy things with adult grown-up men things and frankly, my DH is willing to do that for a short time, but not every time, and not all the time.

Other friends who had a kid in their late 30's/early 40's we hardly ever see anymore. They put not one bit of energy into EVER finding a babysitter, so if the kid couldn't go, no one got to go, or we always had to go to kid-friendly places. That gets old after a while. You know, sometimes you want to go spend some quality adult time with your adult friends.

kmrmom42 · Nov 21, 2004

As an OB nurse I have seen many women over the age of 40 give birth. I have not personally seen anyone over 50 do so though. Older women (Advanced Maternal Age) do have more risk factors than women in their 20's and early 30's but then so do teenagers. Higher risk for gestational diabetes, pregnancy induced hypertension, stroke, placental abruption, genetic disorders like Down's Syndrome and a greater likelihood of a cesarean birth (and the accompanying risks). These higher risk factors begin to be seen over the age of 35 and become increasingly more likely with increasing age. AMA mom's make me a bit nervous as an L&D nurse but with increased vigilance and quality care we can usually have good outcomes.

As far as whether older women SHOULD be having babies, isn't this something that should be evaluated on a case by case basis? If I had not been able to have children when I did I guarantee to you that I would STILL be trying and I am 48. Do I want them now that I am 48 and have 3 kids ages 20, 23 and 24? NO WAY! But that is because I DID have them and I am blessed with having had the opportunity to be tired and out of shape from the experience!

There is no way to know how much time any mother will have with her child. There have been many examples of this in the prior posts. I have a few more....my friend Dee who was born to 20 something parents who were killed in a car accident when she was only 5. Me; my parents had me in their very early 20's. Now they are not even 70 years old and my mother is is so much pain from degenerative bone disease that she is addicted to pain killers and no good to herself or others....my father is deteriorating quickly from Alzheimers.

But my ex-husbands mother, who had him when she was 45, lived a very healthy and active life until she was 80 before she began to fail. So, there is no way of knowing what life is going to throw us. Who is to say that having a child at an older age will be either a positive or negative experience for a child? All we can say for a fact is that it will be a LIFE. And that in itself has great value.

Just my $.02 worth.