Pregnancy in Older Women Increasingly Common, US Unprepared for Consequences :: CHR

Pregnancy in older women is becoming more common in the US. However, as Dr. Norbert Gleicher points out, the social fabric and the medical profession are not prepared for the consequence of this rapid change in reproductive timing.

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October 19, 2011 (New York, NY) In the United States pregnancy in older women is becoming progressively more common. Indeed, US national birth data have for a number of years demonstrated that women above age 40 now represent the most rapidly growing age group having children.

Different societal developments contribute to this development. More women are in the work force, there are fewer and later marriages, higher divorce rates and, of course, medical progress has allowed older women conceive into their 50s either with their own eggs or via egg donation.

Norbert Gleicher, MD, Medical Director of New York City's Center for Human Reproduction (CHR), a leading clinical and research center in infertility, recently sounded alarm bells about the rise in the amount of older women becoming mothers. In a blog published by CHR he notes that a number of media reports recently presented pros and cons of pregnancy in older women. All reports, however, missed the most important conclusion to this seemingly sudden societal development which, in reality, has been growing quietly for over a decade: the developed world is in the midst of a reproductive social revolution in which we will increasingly see older, and often single, women becoming mothers.

So far, the medical profession, academia, and government have failed to address potential societal consequences of an increase in older mothers. The public and medical establishments are similarly skeptical and to a degree hostile to what some have derisively called "grandmothers having children." Yet, Dr. Gleicher notes, "The trend [of pregnancy in older women] is irreversible, and can only be expected to accelerate."

Dr. Gleicher further points out that at CHR the median patient age, which a decade ago was around 35 years, passed 40 in 2011. Egg donation, mostly utilized by older women who no longer can use their own eggs, is CHR's most rapidly growing in vitro fertilization (IVF) program. Trends also can be seen nationally based on Center for Disease Control and Prevention data. Between 2004 and 2008 percentages of IVF cycles as a proportion of all IVF more than doubled above the age of 42. By 2008, egg donation cycles already represented 12.3% of all IVF cycles in the US.

"Medicine is not ready to manage pregnancy in older women safely and society is not ready to help them cope with older motherhood," warns Dr. Gleicher. "Affected medical specialties have to develop the necessary expertise, whether they agree with patients' decisions to be pregnant at advanced ages or not." Feeling strongly about the subject he concludes, "As we do not withhold care from smokers with lung cancer or from overly obese diabetics, it would be unethical to withhold care from older women desirous of motherhood."

CHR is a leading infertility center in New York City, with world-wide patient clientele, well recognized for its extensive clinical research program, which over the years contributed a number of major breakthrough to the IVF process. Dr. Gleicher is available for additional comments.

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