How To Get Pregnant At 46 Years Old

Chances Of Getting Pregnant By Age

At birth, women will have their entire lifetime supply of eggs. As women age, the quality and quantity of those eggs begins to decrease. This, paired with the fact that human reproduction is not the most efficient process, makes timing key.

Many are surprised to learn that each month, on average, a woman only has a 15 to 20 percent chance of conception. For women in their 20s, their chances of getting pregnant within 1 year are 78 to 86 percent. For women 30 to 34, their chances of getting pregnant within 1 year is approximately 63 percent. For women ages 35 to 39, the chances of conception within 1 year declines to 52 percent. This rate continues to decline in a womans 40s, until she reaches menopause, typically between ages 48 and 55.

This is not to say that after 12 months of trying, conception magically declines, but rather that most fertile couples will have conceived, and couples who have not may likely have some form of infertility.

Figure 1: Adapted from Hendershot GE, et.al., Infertility and age: an unresolved issue. Family Planning Perspectives. Vol,14 5 , p. 288 Ó The Alan Guttmacher Institute.

Risks Of Getting Pregnant In Your 40s Is It Safe

For most women, getting pregnant and delivering a baby after the age of 40 is safe, and its on the rise. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since the early 1980s, births among women ages 40-44 have continued to climb even as the overall birth rate in the U.S. has fallen to a record low. In fact, women 40-45 was the only age group not to decline. This trend reflects the cultural shift to women choosing to complete their education, build careers, and waiting to find the right partner before starting a family. Its also a vote of confidence in the assisted reproductive techniques and fertility centers that are sometimes required to make childbearing at an advanced maternal age possible. Plenty of celebrity moms like Janet Jackson and Halle Berry have become the face of women who ignored and ultimately beat their biological clocks.

This is not to say that carrying a child later in life is easy or without risks. Older moms have an increased risk of pregnancy complications like gestational diabetes, preeclampsia , and intrauterine growth restriction, which can cause premature delivery. They are also more likely to need a C-section because older uteruses sometimes dont contract as well as needed for a vaginal delivery. There are also greater risks to an older mom after the child is born, including postpartum hemorrhage or excessive bleeding.

Chances Of Getting Pregnant By Age Chart

Women in their 20s have around 80-90% chance of getting pregnant. In the 30s the chance is between 50 and 75%. Almost 50% of women over 40 have fertility issues and less than 40% have a chance of conceiving if theyre in the early 40s. Know your probability of getting pregnant and being infertile according to your age by referring to the Chances of Getting Pregnant by Age Chart below.

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How I Got Pregnant Naturally At 47 Years Oldpart Two: Sovereignty

Welcome to part two of my series on how I managed to get pregnant at almost 50 years old

As I mentioned in the last article in this series, everyone is asking me what I did to make this work and obviously, I will never know for sure. It is up to the Great Mystery on how these things occur. But I want to offer is what I do know. In this series, Im sharing with you the sacred intimacy practices I was doing when I got pregnant this late in life. I believe that without them, this would have never happened for me.

In this article, I want to talk about Sovereignty.

Lets start with the dictionary definition

sov·er·eign·ty

noun

The dictionary definition of sovereignty, as you see above, speaks to having supreme power or authority to having self-determination being in a self-governing state.

When it comes to my story of getting pregnant and this article I use this word I specifically to mean staying grounded in my own personal truth.

Mastering others is strength.

Mastering yourself is true power.

Lao Tzu

Along my path, I was very careful to never, ever, ever buy into that belief.

So heres how this all played out

Applying this to Your Life

Tips For A Healthy Pregnancy If Youre Pregnant At 45

The best ways to tip the odds so that your pregnancy is a healthy one are to:

• See your doctor before you try to conceive to make sure that any appropriate testing is performed and medications are adjusted to maximize the safety of your pregnancy.
• See your doctor regularly during your pregnancy and follow all recommendations, including the ones about screening and diagnostic tests.
• Stay on top of any chronic conditions by taking your doctor-recommended medications.
• Eat well by following a healthy pregnancy diet.

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Basal Body Temperature Recording

This method uses the fact that your basal body temperature rises by 0.4-1.0°C after ovulation by which time it is too late to optimize the chances of conception in that menstrual cycle. To use this method accurately, you have to take your basal body temperature first thing every morning before moving out of bed, and it will take several menstrual cycles before you start to build up a picture of your fertility window. There are also many factors, like sleep cycles changes, travel, and alcohol consumption that can change your BBT. Studies have shown that using a womans basal body temperature to predict her fertile days is less than 70% successful.

Potential Risks Of Pregnancy During Perimenopause

While there are always some risks involved in pregnancy, the risks are much higher during perimenopause. There is potential for a variety of complications and women who are pregnant during perimenopause are considered to be high-risk and should be monitored more closely by medical professionals.

Its important to know that women over the age of 40 have about a 50% chance of miscarriage. If you are a woman in your perimenopausal years and you are contemplating pregnancy, its highly recommended that you talk with your doctor to make sure you are well informed and medically cleared of any preexisting conditions that could complicate pregnancy even more.

Health risks during pregnancy that increase after the age of 35 can include:

• Premature or low birth weight

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Other Ways To Add To Your Family

If you feel youve started this journey too late, have a frank discussion with your doctor. Make a preconception visit. Understand your odds and the risks associated with pregnancy at whatever age you find yourself.

Regardless, your age doesnt mean you cant explore other ways to grow your family. Other options include:

Be Mindful Of Changes In Your Body

The thyroid regulates our metabolism, and an undiagnosed thyroid disorder can affect your chances of conceiving. Some of the symptoms of a dysfunctional thyroid include weight and mood changes, sensitivity to cold/hot, skin dryness, palpitations and fatigue. So if you have noticed any of these changes, it is worth considering a visit to the GP to get a blood test.

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In Vitro Fertilization :

If IUI is not recommended or was not successful after several cycles, your reproductive endocrinologists will likely recommend progressing to IVF. IVF has become the gold standard of fertility care and boasts the highest success rates per cycle of any Assisted Reproductive Technology . It successfully eliminates many female and male factors that may be contributing to your inability to conceive.

Women who switch from IUI to IVF sooner or begin with IVF get pregnant quicker than those who stick or start with IUI. found that undergoing immediate IVF resulted in superior pregnancy rates with fewer treatment cycles compared to those who did two rounds of IUI before switching to IVF. While the immediate IVF group got pregnant quicker, the overall success after up to 6 IVF cycles was similar.

During an IVF cycle, eggs are removed from the females ovaries and fertilized using partner or donor sperm in a laboratory . Embryos are allowed to develop for several days at which point, one embryo is transferred back into the womans uterus. IVF is used in conjunction with many different medication protocols to produce more eggs, higher quality sperm, embryos, and improve the uterine lining.

Therefore, if IVF is not successful after several cycles and egg quality is believed to be a likely cause, your reproductive endocrinologist will likely suggest using an egg donor.

Coenzyme Q10 Goes By Many Names:

Ubiquinone = Ubiqinone = Ubidecarenone = Myoqinon = Myoquinone = Bio-Qinone = Normal Q10 = Oxidized Q10 = The original Q10 = Q = QX = CoQ = CoQ10 = 2,3-dimethoxy-5-methyl-6-decaprenyl-1,4-benzoquinon Ubiquinol = Ubiqinol = Uniqinol = BioActive Q10 = Reduced Q10 = QH = QH2 = CoQH = Dihydroquinone = 2,3-dimethoxy-5-methyl-6-poly prenyl-1,4-benzoquinol

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When To Talk To Your Provider

Getting pregnant after 40 is possible without fertility treatment, but your chances of having trouble conceiving are higher. After the age of 45, its not likely that you’ll be able to get pregnant with your own eggs.

If you’re over 40 and wish to conceive, ACOG recommends that you see your gynecologist right away for an evaluation, which may include basic fertility testing. A simple blood test can check your FSH and AMH levels, and an antral follicle count ultrasound can assess your risk for infertility.

If you have any symptoms or risk factors for infertility, make sure you discuss them with your provider before you start trying to get pregnant. You can also ask them if there is anything you can do to increase your odds of conceiving.

Review Your Prescription Medications

Lets face it, women over 40 have a higher chance of taking prescription medications and having health issues than women who are younger than 40. If you are taking medications that could affect your chances of conceiving a baby and having a healthy pregnancy, make sure you talk to your doctor about your different options before proceeding. You may have to make difficult decisions about your health and your babys safety when youre trying to improve your chances of pregnancy over 40.

What advice would you give women coping with infertility? Stay positive, give it time, keep an open mind and consider all options for infertile couples. Again stay positive and optimistic! Consider whats best for you and dont listen to what your family and good friends are saying. Initially, my own mother was really against in vitro fertilization and wouldnt even discuss it with me. I figured in due time she would come around when she was ready. And she is.

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Halle Berry’s Pregnancy: The Real Deal On Fertility In Your 40s

Bombshell Halle Berry dropped a bombshell of her own last week. The 46-year-old actress, the first African American to win a Best Actress Academy Award , announced she was pregnant.

Bombshell Halle Berry dropped a bombshell of her own recently. The 46-year-old actress, the first African American to win a Best Actress Academy Award , announced she was pregnant.

Berry, who has said she has type 1 diabetes, has a daughter, Nahla, 5, from a previous relationship. She is expecting her second child with fiancée Olivier Martinez, who is 47.

I feel fantastic,the former Bond girl told CNN. This has been the biggest surprise of my life, to tell you the truth. Thought I was kind of past the point where this could be a reality for me.

Berrys happy news has been a surprise to some infertility experts, as well. Its caused one to issue this caution to the woman on the street: We dont want the 38-year-old woman deferring childbearing to take this as proof that they can easily conceive naturally in years to come, says Joshua U. Klein, MD, medical director of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York-Brooklyn.

When you hear of people in the public arena who are pregnant in their 40s, the obvious suspicion is that theyve availed themselves of fertility treatment, but arent being transparent about it, Dr. Klein says. Im not saying thats what Halle Berry did, but the odds are against her having conceived naturally at her age.

Read more:

How To Improve Your Chances Of Getting Pregnant After 40

The good news is that yes, achieving a healthy successful pregnancy as a 40-year-old woman is possible without fertility treatments! But the bad news is that your chances of having trouble conceiving a baby are much higher. Of all women ages 40 to 44, 29% will experience infertility. In comparison, women in their early 20s only experience infertility 7% of the time. Women in their early 30s experience infertility 15% of the time.

As a woman over 40, your chances of pregnancy are lower then when you were younger. A 30-year-old woman has a 20% chance of getting pregnant every month a 40-year-old woman only has a 5% chance of getting pregnant.

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Chances Of Getting Pregnant With Intrauterine Insemination

For many women, in vitro fertilization will likely not be their first treatment option. In fact, half of all treatment performed at Shady Grove Fertility is a more basic form of intervention called intrauterine insemination or IUI. The goal of this treatment is to increase the number of sperm that reach the Fallopian tubes and subsequently increases the chance of fertilization. IUI provides the sperm an advantage by giving it a head start, but still requires the sperm to reach and fertilize the egg on its own.

The goal of IUI treatment is to improve the rate of conception to that of the fertile population, or roughly 15 to 20 percent per attempt. Age, along with the cause of infertility, will ultimately determine what your chances of success are per cycle of IUI.

Its Probably A Donated Egg

Its exceptionally rare for patients to get pregnant naturally at 50 or over 45. They make history, said Dr. David Keefe, an obstetrician-gynecologist and fertility researcher at New York University.

In part thats because around age 50, many women are entering menopause, after which egg harvesting isnt possible.

And as eggs age they also accumulate more genetic glitches. The mechanism is not completely understood, but it may be because eggs have shorter telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes.

Once the eggs DNA has accumulated damage it cant repair, then its division as an embryo goes haywire, with chromosomes sticking together when they should come apart. The resulting embryo may end up with too many or too few chromosomes, said Dr. Kutluk Oktay, a fertility doctor and researcher at the New York Medical College. The majority of those end up in miscarriages.

So older would-be mothers often use eggs donated by younger, more fertile women. For younger women seeking pregnancy, donor eggs might only be discussed after theyve tried other kinds of fertility treatments, but for those over 45, thats kind of where they start, said Alicia Abdella, an infertility social worker at Massachusetts General Hospital.

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Answers To Your Hormone Test Questions

The Modern Fertility Hormone Test is extremely accurate. Whether you collect your sample with our at-home test kit or choose to go into a Quest lab, youâll get accurate results from your fertility hormone test. We conducted a clinical study demonstrating that the Modern Fertility home test kit and a traditional blood draw can be used interchangeably to measure reproductive hormones.This clinical study was published in the February 2019 edition of Obstetrics & Gynecology , the Official Publication of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. âLearn about the accurate results in our clinical study

Weâll send you everything you need to test, along with instructions to support you throughout the process. After you collect your blood sample with a simple finger prick test, youâll just pop it in the mail and our lab will handle the rest.

It typically takes about 7 days to get results after your sample arrives at our lab. In total, expect about 10 days from the time you drop your sample in the mail. Weâll send you an email when your results are ready to go so you can login to your personalized fertility dashboard!

Yes! Your test will arrive in discreet packaging from âModern Health.â

We created Modern Fertility to bring the cost of testing down and to make customized fertility hormone information more accessible. Your test results are just one piece of this. With your Fertility Hormone Test, you’ll also gain access to:

Will My Baby Be Disabled

An over-40 pregnancy does come with increased chances of disability for the baby in addition to risks for the mother. The prevalence of chromosomal abnormalities in babies increases with the increasing age of the mother. There are several theories as to why this may be, including a decreased number of normal oocytes available, or accumulated stress on the DNA strands within eggs, to name just a couple. At the age of 33, the chance of your baby being diagnosed with trisomy 21 during pregnancy is approximately 1/400. At the age of 40, this chance increases to 1/70. By age 45, this chance is about 1/19.

So too does the chance of congenital disabilities increase with age. The U.S. National Birth Defects Prevention Study found that women greater than age 40 are at increased risk of having babies with multiple types of heart defects, genital abnormalities, skull deformities, and esophageal malformations.

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