Tag: 30s

Age and the Risk of Miscarriage

As women, we hear a lot about the difficulty of getting pregnant as we age, but staying pregnant can often be the bigger challenge, especially as our fertility begins to wane.

The risk of miscarriage rises as a woman ages, with a dramatic rise starting after age 37, with the steepest increase occurring after age 40. By age 45, less than 20% of all recognized pregnancies are viable.

The man’s age matters too. Having a partner over the age of 40 significantly raises the chances of a miscarriage.

Over half of miscarriages are caused by genetic abnormalities. As women age, chromosomal defects in their eggs become increasingly common. On average, a woman in her early 20s will have chromosomal abnormalities in about 17% of her eggs; this percentage jumps to nearly 80% by a woman’s early 40s. And as men age, chromosomal defects and point mutations–changes to a single nucleotide in their DNA–become increasingly common.

How The Chances of Miscarriage Vary By Age Continue reading “Age and the Risk of Miscarriage”

The Fertility Cliff at Age 35 is a Myth

Several years ago, before I was married or had even begun dating my husband-to-be, I was chatting with a reproductive endocrinologist about when I needed to worry about my fertility going into decline. I was about to turn 30. Should I be worried? And how many quality reproductive years did I have left?

She told me most women were fine at 30 or 35. At her clinic, she said, she rarely saw women with problems related to “advanced ovarian age” before they turned 37 or 38.

I was surprised, to say the least. Like so many women, I had heard ad nauseam about “getting pregnant after 35.”

Despite all the chatter, I was not actually clear on why 35 was an important cutoff. Was it because getting pregnant was more difficult after 35? Or staying pregnant became challenging after 35? Or was that the age when the risk of chromosomal abnormalities like Down’s syndrome rose dramatically?

It turns out that none of these reasons are correct. Because in fact there is no reason; age 35 is not actually a cliff. It is not even a sharp bend in the curve, a point at which birth rates go into a steep decline. Those sharp bends come later, after 37, and again after 40.

So why has age 35 been etched into our consciousness? Continue reading “The Fertility Cliff at Age 35 is a Myth”

Fertility in Your 30s and 40s: 7 Things You Need to Know

Getting pregnant is a numbers game. Here’s what every woman should know about her odds of success in her late 30s and early 40s.

One of my former colleagues became pregnant her first shot out of the barn, the first month off the pill. Her story would hardly be noteworthy, except that she was 41 at the time.

She wanted to tell other women about her experience, she confided to me. She saw it as a sign that women can have children after age 40.

I simply nodded in response, while I privately wondered if she had not just been very lucky.

But–and this is key–how lucky?

Having a baby in your 30s and early 40s–and earlier, for that matter–is always a chance event. There will be outliers. Some women will give birth naturally at 44. Some women will suffer from early menopause at age 30. But outliers tells us little about the norm.

Anyone who wants to play the conception game, especially if they are postponing childbearing, needs to put anecdotes aside and try to grasp the actual odds. Here’s what every woman needs to know:

Continue reading “Fertility in Your 30s and 40s: 7 Things You Need to Know”