Women are waiting till they're older to have babies – is it careerism or just circumstances, asks SHEILA WAYMAN
RADIO PRESENTER Deirdre Walsh and her husband, Dermot Crean, always intended to have children after they married in 2000 and never thought it would be a problem.
But miscarriages on two successive Valentine’s Days, when Walsh was in her early 30s, left them “gutted”.
After tests showed there was no apparent medical reason why they couldn’t have children, they decided to let nature take its course. A couple more years passed and she still wasn’t pregnant.
"I knew my chances were dwindling and we had a conversation and said this wasn't happening for us," says Walsh (43). Although disappointed, she and Crean (38), the deputy editor of The Kerryman, decided not to go down the IVF route.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t want kids, but we just decided if it was meant to be, it was meant to be. We were philosophical and got on with our lives.”
Then, out of the blue, Walsh found she was pregnant at 41. “I was just so shocked. My reaction was, ‘I will probably miscarry again’.”
After getting past 12 weeks, and having had the risks of abnormalities spelled out, they opted for chromosomal screening. They were reassured that everything seemed fine and Olivia was safely delivered by Caesarean section, on June 2nd, 2010.
“She was, and is, thank God, perfect,” says Walsh, who presents an afternoon talk show on Kerry Radio.
Olivia is just one of about 3,500 babies born to mothers aged over 40 in the Republic each year, and the average age of mothers at childbirth is creeping up all the time. Latest figures from the Central Statistics Office show that the average age of mothers for births registered in the second quarter of 2011 was 31.8 years. This was 0.3 years more than the corresponding figure for 2010, and 1.3 years more than in 2002.
And women in Ireland are having children later than nearly all their European counterparts. According to Eurostat figures for 2010, Ireland had the second highest mean age for women at childbirth of 31.22, pipped only by Liechtenstein, where the mean age was 31.35.
Not only does a woman’s fertility decline from about the age of 35, but there is increased risk to both mother and baby in older women’s pregnancies. Talk of “40 being the new 30” doesn’t hold true in reproductive matters.
Three years ago, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK was so concerned about the trend of older mothers, it issued a statement reminding people that, biologically, the optimum period for childbearing is between 20 and 35 years of age. And it encouraged women to consider having families during that period of optimum fertility.
Contrary to the stereotypical view of “selfish career women” living it up before contemplating having children, the reality is that there are many reasons why motherhood comes late in a woman’s life, ranging from the little matter of wanting to be in a stable relationship to having difficulties conceiving.
Timing of a family is a complex issue, acknowledges Prof Fionnuala McAuliffe, spokeswoman for the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Ireland. But she thinks people need to be more aware of issues that can arise later in life. McAuliffe works at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, where they have seen “a really dramatic increase” in the percentages of older women giving birth. There is no doubt but that poses additional risks to the mother and baby, she says, and also puts more pressure on hospital resources.
In 2001, 23 per cent of all births at the hospital were to women aged 35 and over; by 2010, that had risen to 31 per cent. For women 40 and over, it was 3 per cent in 2001 and 5.3 per cent in 2010.
“I don’t think the message is getting out there about [declining] fertility and, second of all, that the risks are increased for the older mother,” says McAuliffe.
This is a view shared by midwife and fertility specialist Anita O’Neill, who works with the Zita West clinic in London and comes to her native Ireland once a month to run clinics in Dublin or Cork. The “age message” has not sunk in as much in Ireland as it has in the UK, she suggests.
“There needs to be a huge push of awareness in Ireland. Age is the single most important factor when it comes to fertility – everything else you can get around. You are born with your eggs and when they’re gone, they’re gone.”
However, it is a bugbear of hers that value judgments are made on women leaving it late. “A lot of these women are leaving it [until they’re] older purely because they haven’t met their man until later or other life circumstances have taken over. Rarely do I meet people who want to have it all first,” she says.
So if you are a woman in your early 30s and haven’t met the right partner, what can you do to boost your chances of having a healthy pregnancy if he comes along within the next decade?
Smoking, alcohol and poor diet have the most damaging effects on eggs. O’Neill also says a deficiency of vitamin D, the “workhorse of our immune system”, is significant among Irish women. And, when trying to get pregnant, less stress and more sex can work wonders.
Having a normal body weight improves fertility “hugely”, says McAuliffe. Keep active, eat well and take folic acid before you want to get pregnant is her advice.
“I think if the woman is healthy at the beginning of pregnancy, and a normal weight, then the outcome is likely to be good.”
People tend to get heavier as they get older, and weight issues increase the risks of higher blood pressure and diabetes during pregnancy that are associated with older women.
“They are more likely to have these conditions and then are more likely, because of these conditions, to require Caesarean section,” she adds.
For the baby of an older mother, the risks of miscarriage and growth restriction are both increased, as is the likelihood of having Down syndrome.
Walsh knows how lucky they are to have Olivia and sees advantages and disadvantages in being an older mother. “Looking back I would not have been half as mentally prepared at 32 as I was at 42.”
The downside is that it is physically exhausting. “There is a reason nature prefers you to have babies when you’re younger,” she says with a laugh.
“It is very hard when you are working full-time – going home and doing another full-time job. But I would not have it any other way – she is fantastic and the light of our lives.
“The other advantage of having a baby at my age is you have done the travelling the world, going on the beer after work on a Friday, eating out.
“We are content to be in most weekends and we don’t resent it at all – but maybe we would have 10 years ago.”
Most of her friends had babies in their 20s or 30s and she is sorry that she did not hit this milestone at the same time as them.
“I miss that because my best friend, for example, her son is in secondary school and I ask her things to do with teething and nappies and she can’t remember!”
Some of the girls she went to school with in Ballybunion are already grandmothers.
The only thing she finds hard to accept is that Olivia is going to be an only child. “I am not going to push my luck again – I was very fortunate.
“It is not ideal that she won’t have siblings because both my husband and I would be very close to our families,” she adds. “I hate that she is going to miss out on that.”
' I felt a switch goes off at 40'
June Leahy had no interest in having babies when she was in her early 30s, although she had met her husband-to-be when she was 30.
For her, having children was “never on the cards”, she explains. “Most of my friends had kids in their 20s and I didn’t understand it.”
It was not that she was obsessed with her job. Working as a dentist in Cork, her career was ticking over, she says, but she was never intent on climbing the ladder.
“It was only when I was about 34 that I thought I wouldn’t mind having kids.”
At that stage she and her husband, Tom Boyle, who live in Glanmire, Co Cork, had been together four years.
Fast forward nine years and they now have three children, Ryan (5), Seán (3) and Isabelle (2), and a fourth on the way.
She regarded Isabelle as her “gamble” baby at 41, but she was perfect. “I think you have it in your head that a switch goes off at 40 and you are guaranteed something will go wrong.”
There was no way, she decided, she would take a risk again. But Mother Nature thought otherwise. This time around, at the age of 43, Leahy expected staff at the maternity hospital “to recoil in horror” when she gave her date of birth, but they were very reassuring.
She doesn’t feel out of place as an older mother, although she has gone out of her way to find women with children at similar stages.
“Because my friends had kids when they were younger, they don’t want to be hanging around with my toddlers having tantrums – their kids are teenagers.”
She attended one mother and baby group where she felt the women were too young for her.
“They were all sitting around talking about programmes on television I wouldn’t be watching.”
So she went on to the parenting site Rollercoaster to ask if there were “any older mums out there” – now a group of 12 of them meet up regularly. Coffee mornings soon progressed to nights out. “We’re delighted with each other,” she says.
Although in her 40s, she feels she has plenty of energy for her children. But she does worry that she might not have enough for her grandchildren . . .
In 2001,
23%
of all births at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin were to women aged
35 and over; by 2010, that had risen to
31%
For women 40 and over, it was
3%
in 2001 and
5.3%
in 2010
Men need to listen to the biological clock too
Men need to wake up and hear the ticking clock too, as Susan Byrne*, who embarked on her first serious relationship at the age of 36, made clear to her then boyfriend.
“If you have decided I am going to be the mother of your children, my age is now no longer my issue – it is also your issue,” she pointed out.
After that, “we speeded up the romance and marriage part!” she says with a laugh. But, after a couple of miscarriages, she was three months short of 40 when their first child arrived.
“I breastfed my son for only four months, to get things moving and get my cycle back.” Luckily she had no trouble conceiving and their daughter was born 18 months later.
But being late starters limited their family size. “It breaks my heart that we don’t have more,” says Byrne, who lives in Galway and is from a large family.
By the time she had had her second child and stopped breastfeeding, she was 42. “I was thinking, 42 was ancient and we should be grateful for the two we have.
“Now of course, in hindsight, looking back from the age of 45, 42 doesn’t look so old. That was a stupid decision and why didn’t I just go and have a third, and I could have had twins!”
Men need to take responsibility, agrees Anita O’Neill of the Zita West clinic, and they can do a lot to improve their own fertility, such as not smoking or binge-drinking, which are detrimental to sperm.
“If you have a woman with older eggs and a husband with brilliant sperm, she has a far better chance than a woman with older eggs and a husband with poor sperm,” she adds.
*Name has been changed
