Is It Safe To Get Pregnant At 40

Added Risks To Mom’s Health

Unfortunately with age comes a risk in maternal health problems. Again, this does not apply to all women, but the risks would include possibility of high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, placentia praevia, and having a baby of low birth weight. A womans blood pressure and urine will be constantly monitored throughout pregnancy to ensure that everything is going smoothly. If her health care practitioner feels that she could benefit from seeing a consultant or specialist, that will also be offered. Many women in their forties go on to have healthy pregnancies and labor despite the scary statistics.

It is just important that a woman knows her risks going in, and that she will get proper care should her pregnancy be deemed a high risk one. There are tests that will be performed and her risks and options will be made available to her so as a mother- to-be, she could make the best decision for her and her baby.

How These Pregnancies Happen

Getting pregnant without intervention, however, can be an issue. The chances of a women conceiving at 50 is not well studied. However, without any reproductive assistance, the chance of spontaneous conception is likely less than 1 percent, says Scott A. Shainker, DO at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA. Not exactly betting odds.

Some scientists are hard at work to change all that. According to an article in New Scientist, a Greek fertility clinic is a trying to help menopausal women get pregnant using their own eggs by injecting their own platelet-rich plasma directly into their ovaries and uterus, with the goal of repairing their reproductive systems.

Until unconventional methods like this become conventional, Minkin says if a healthy woman in this age range wants to get pregnant but is unable to make eggs on her own, she could be a good candidate to have a donor egg fertilized with sperm in vitro, and have the embryo implanted into her uterus.

Rhonda Collins, the Oakland, CA-based co-founder and CEO of an online toy recycling community called Toy-cycle, had twins at the age of 48 via IVF using donor eggs from the Czech Republic. She says her doctor wasnt particularly alarmist about her pregnancy: My ob-gyn did not treat me differently. I live in a major urban center, so I think older moms are more common than perhaps smaller towns or rural areas, she recalls.

Home Remedies To Increase Your Success Rate Of Getting Pregnant In The 40s

Here are some home remedies that may help to elevate your chances of getting pregnant in your 40s:

• It is very important to keep a close track of you menstrual cycle and remain acknowledged about your fertile days. The fertile period lies on the 14th day of your menstrual cycle and for the next ten days.

• Monitor and record your basal body temperature and practice frequent intercourse at or around the time of ovulation. A slight increase of your body temperature indicates that you are successfully ovulating, and it is the best time for sexual intercourse.

• Use an ovulation predictor kit that indicates the successful ovulation days and increases your chances of conception.

• Monitor the substantial changes in your cervical secretion. It enables you to understand whether the embryo successfully implants in the uterus or not.

• Avoid performing strenuous physical activities especially running, riding stairs and lifting heavy weights during the course.

• Performing sexual intercourse in different positions elevates your chances of pregnancy at 40.The doggy position is mostly preferred for baby making as the sperms deeply penetrate.

• Expert suggests that soft massaging of the uterus helps in promoting blood supply and enhances healthy development of uterine tissue.

• Fertility cleansing helps your body to get rid of toxic wastes that your body releases during the normal metabolic process. Elimination of toxic wastes increases your chances of conception.

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Egg Quality In The 40s

Egg quality plays a huge factor in your ability to get pregnant with your own eggs after 40. Unfortunately, theres no real way to test egg quality besides actually fertilizing an egg and seeing what happens. While there are indeed visual grading systems used by embryologists, those grades are given based on a quick visual analysis and known to be quite unreliable.

We do know that the older you are, the higher percentage of genetically abnormal eggs you will make. In fact, most fertility specialists agree that egg quality is nearly synonymous with how genetically normal the egg is .

While all women, even those in their 20s have some genetically abnormal eggs, the ratio of abnormal eggs skyrockets from the age of 35 to the mid-40s. At 40, approximately 40% of eggs will be genetically normal. By the age of 44, as little as 10-20% may be normal.

Percentage of Genetically Abnormal Embryos by Age

Genetically abnormal eggs are less likely to fertilize or implant in the uterine lining. If they do implant they are more likely to result in a pregnancy loss. This is the main reason that fertility declines as a woman ages into their 40.

Its important to note here that while we have discussed this egg quality decline as it is inevitable, research shows that it is at least partially fixable. We will discuss this further in the following section on how to increase your chances of getting pregnant after 40.

Having A Healthy Pregnancy In Your 40s

Brian Levine, MD, MS, is board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology as well as in reproductive endocrinology and infertility.

• Postpartum Health

There is no one perfect time to get pregnant. Many people, though, have often been told that having a baby after you are 35 increases many risks. This might have led you to believe that there are not many mothers who have babies after this point. The truth of the matter is that many women are having babies in their 40s.

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Your Risk For Breast Cancer Might Change

This was probably the biggest surprise to me: Research suggests that the older a new mother is when she has her first child, the higher her risk for breast cancer. According to Louise Brinton, Ph.D., who was formerly chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute, women who have their first child after 40 may be at slightly higher risk of developing breast cancer in the decade or so following childbirth than those who gave birth before they were 20. The simplistic view is that as you age, your cells are constantly changing, and a heavy dose of hormone can promote them into cancer, Dr. Brinton said.

How this phenomenon translates into absolute, rather than relative, risk, however, is a bit thorny. A large study published in 2018, for instance, found that among women who had children between 34 and 47, 2.2 percent developed breast cancer within three to seven years after they gave birth . Over all, according to the American Cancer Society, women between 40 and 49 have a 1.5 percent chance of developing breast cancer.

The best thing you can do, Dr. Brinton said, is to make sure that your doctor is aware of this risk and that you are regularly screened with mammograms.

Follow A Healthy Regime:

• If you are willing to increase your fertility rate, it is important to make lifestyle changes and stay positive about life.

• Try to give up the habits of smoking or taking alcohols, as they adversely degrade the fertility rate.

• To reduce excess stress, you can try practicing healthy exercises including yoga, cycling, swimming, jogging and even walking in your daily regime.

• Get plenty of sleep, to keep you rejuvenated. Sufficient rest eliminates harmful toxins from your body and helps you to live a stress-free life.

• Make requisite changes in your dietary plan and include nutritious foods in your diet. You can include fresh vegetables, whole grains, and folate-rich foods like dark leafy veggies, legumes and citrus fruits in your diet. To increase protein intake add eggs, dairy products, fish and lean meats .

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Raising A Kid In A Positive Environment:

• As you get the chance to spend long years with your life partner, you know each other in a better way. The bonding is rather strong, and the family offers a solid foundation for their childs upbringing.

• Young parents have a tendency to fight and quarrel, due to a financially unstable condition. It often leads to divorce, which can affect your childs mind.

How To Get Pregnant If You Have Endometriosis

Endometriosis is another common reproductive condition, affecting more than one in 10 women in the United States. It occurs when tissue found in the uterus grows in other parts of the body, such as the ovaries or fallopian tubes.

Even mild endometriosis can reduce fertility, while severe endometriosis can distort a woman’s pelvic anatomy and, for example, block her fallopian tubes, according to a 2015 study in The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of India.

It is still possible for a woman with endometriosis to become pregnant, and, once pregnant, the pregnancy is expected to be no different to that of a woman without endometriosis. Medical treatment through drugs does not improve fertility, according to Endometriosis UK, an endometriosis-focused charity. These medications involve regulating a person’s hormones, and can slow the growth of endometrial tissue and prevent new pieces from developing, said the Mayo Clinic. But because these drugs are based on hormones , they actively stop a woman from getting pregnant.

Endometriosis presents differently in different women, so its treatment depends on the individual,according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Surgery to excise the endometrial and scar tissue may improve fertility rates and help reduce pain associated with endometriosis, researchers reported in the 2015 study in TheJournal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of India.

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Mentally Psyching Self Out

In this pregnancy in 40s, I am a little less confident of the physical demands of gestation and birth.

Case in point: the deliberation on where I should give birth.

Unlike Illinois, there are no birth centers close by to where I live in Florida. My choices are either home birth with midwife or hospital birth. While it seems like a no brainer for Mama Natural to give birth at home, I had some reservations .

Would it be safe? Am I a good candidate? Am I too old?

After some prayer and good, professional counsel, we decided to go for a home birth. In fact, my conservative Chicago midwife said that I was an excellent candidate since my pregnancy has gone so smoothly and because I almost gave birth to Paloma in the car. In fact, she said it would be safer for someone like me to give birth at home.

While in the past, I may have only needed my own reassurance, this time I needed others to tell me it was OK.

Understanding Your Fertility At 30

Why does a womans fertility decrease so predictably with age? As babies, we are born with all the eggs we will ever have in our lifetime. Unlike men, who continually produce sperm, women cannot make new eggs after they are born.

The average girl is born with approximately one million potential eggs . By your first period, this number has already shrunk to around 300,000. During the average womans reproductive life, only 300 to 500 eggs will mature enough to potentially form a pregnancy.

This means women already have a limited supply of eggs and, as we age, our eggs decline in quantity and quality. Some eggs die off others experience natural genetic mutations with age that prevent them from becoming a healthy pregnancy. Heres what your egg quality and quantity looks like in your 30s.

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What To Expect During Pregnancy

For healthy women over 40, advanced age does not necessarily change how the pregnancy feels or progresses.

Most women experience a range of symptoms during the first trimester, including morning sickness. There is no evidence that these symptoms are worse or different in women over 40.

The first trimester may be more stressful for other reasons, though. Older age carries a higher risk of pregnancy loss, especially for women who have previously had miscarriages.

A found that the risk of pregnancy loss was 53% in women over 45, compared with 10% in women aged 2529.

As the pregnancy progresses, women have an increased risk of experiencing pregnancy-related complications, such as:

• gestational diabetes
• high blood pressure
• preterm delivery

For this reason, a doctor or midwife may recommend increased medical monitoring. This monitoring may include additional prenatal appointments or tests.

Some women may also choose genetic testing to assess the chance of having a baby with a birth abnormality.

Despite these increased risks, women over 40 can and do have healthy pregnancies. A

• maintains a healthful lifestyle
• has the baby in a prenatal center

This means that, for healthy women, conceiving after 40 may be no more dangerous than conceiving earlier in life. However, the rate of cesarean deliveries was higher among women over 40.

Cut Back On Strenuous Workouts

Being physically active most days of the week can help a woman’s body prepare for the demands of pregnancy and labor, and has been associated with a reduced risk of fertility problems, scientists reported in the March 2020 issue of the journalHuman Reproduction. But getting too much exercise or doing frequent strenuous workouts could interfere with ovulation,Live Science reported.

Doctors see a lot of menstrual disturbances in women who exercise heavily, and a lot of times these women need to cut back on their workouts if they want to become pregnant, Pavone told Live Science.

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Where To Get Help And Support

Although IVF can help some women conceive, Dr Stewart cautions against seeing it as a solution for all: “Some NHS commissioners will allow one cycle of IVF treatment for couples over 40 who haven’t tried it before, but the situation varies. More usually IVF requires several rounds of treatment and is self-funded. You need to have an ovarian egg reserve great enough to produce a number of eggs to ensure a reasonable chance of success in a standard cycle, otherwise theres little point in trying IVF.”

She advises women in their early forties to get a referral to a fertility specialist if they are not pregnant within a year of trying – or earlier if there is an obvious issue – to make sure there are no other contributing factors other than age.

“If those investigations are normal and couples have tried for two years it’s classed as unexplained subfertility, recognising that there are other factors that may not easily be tested for. Sometimes continuing to have intercourse over a prolonged period of time gives a cumulative pregnancy rate that may be greater than what can be achieved through treatment if there is no clear cause.”

Is There Anything Else I Can Do

No matter your age, there are some lifestyle changes you can make to help you get pregnant, like:

• stop smoking
• take
• follow a healthy diet

You can also get your partner involved. It takes two to make a baby and your partner can also take a few steps to help boost your chances of conception. Keeping fit and healthy, reducing alcohol, and stopping smoking can help him create healthy sperm. He should also wear loose underwear and avoid hot baths: keeping the testes cool can help with sperm quality. And if you use any lubricant, make sure you buy the sperm-friendly variety.

You can see more advice in our article on the .

Although fertility declines after 35, it is still possible to get pregnant and go on to have a healthy pregnancy. Its important to see your doctor, get the right prenatal care, and know when you ovulate to maximise your chances of getting pregnant after 35 naturally.

There are, of course, other options to getting pregnant like using an egg donor or freezing your eggs. You can also use IVF when a sperm and an egg are combined in a laboratory, and the embryo is frozen and then transferred to your uterus when you are ready. However, fertility treatments depend on many factors like your health and your age when the embryo was frozen. Talk to a fertility specialist and your doctor if you are considering an alternative route like an egg donor or IVF treatment.

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Women’s Age And Fertility

A woman is born with all the eggs she is going to have in her lifetime. Her eggs age with her, decreasing in quality and quantity. Age is the single most important factor affecting a woman ‘s fertility. While good health improves the chance of getting pregnant and having a healthy baby, it doesn ‘t override the effects of age on a woman ‘s fertility.

A woman in her early to mid-20s has a 2530% chance of getting pregnant every month. Fertility generally starts to reduce when a woman is in her early 30s, and more so after the age of 35. By age 40, the chance of getting pregnant in any monthly cycle is around 5%.