From Health magazine
Last year, a 70-year-old Indian woman named Omkari Panwar made medical history as the oldest woman to give birth. She and her husband conceived via in vitro fertilization, and Omkari delivered boy-girl twins via C-section. The couple had two daughters and five grandchildren, but they had always wanted a son.
As radical as that story seems, the idea of having kids later in life is not. Medical advances—including in vitro fertilization, using donor eggs and/or sperm to conceive, and enlisting carriers—have all but erased the notion of a biological clock. In fact, between 1997 and 2007, the birth rate among American women ages 45 to 49 shot up 50%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The CDC doesn’t even have comparable data for moms over 50, because this trend is so new. Along with news reports of older moms from coast to coast (Frieda Birnbaum of New Jersey had twins at 60, and Janise Wulf of California had a baby at 62), there’s a growing number of support groups such as PregnancyAfter50.com, MotherhoodLater.com, and the Yahoo! group babiesafter50.
But there is a flip side to this phenomenon. In the June issue of Health, we reported on the health dangers of later-in-life pregnancy. Now, in part two of our series, we investigate the challenges these older moms face—from the stigma of being the oldest mom on the playground to unexpected, even life-threatening, health issues. Read on for three women’s honest stories.
Next: Joanie Shook, 47
Comments (1)
I do not judge someone on if they have money or not, but I would like to point out in Elizabeth Allen’s case that she does not have one day with the kids to herself. As a young parent I understand the difficulties of constantly budgeting your money, and I don’t believe that having money makes it “ok” for someone to have another kid. Elizabeth almost DIED, and she still can’t care for her kids alone. YET, she’s considering another child? Every one of these mothers point out that they are more financially stable because they had their children later in life… well I had my son at 19. I may not have an excess of money for babysitters or healthcare workers, but that doesn’t mean my child got the short end of the stick. It means my child has ME everyday. Yes, Elizabeth has enough money at 51 to hire someone to be with her children all day, but she doesn’t have enough energy to be full-time mom for them, and for her to consider another child would be selfish in my opinon.