Don’t scare women about late motherhood – expert

LONDON: Health experts should stop “terrifying” older women about the risks of having babies, Britain’s top midwife has said.

Prof Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), said experts had overstated the problems attached to age.

The number of older mothers has soared, as more women concentrate on their careers first and now have their first child five years later on average than they did 47 years ago.

The average age of firsttime motherhood in England and Wales is 28.6 – up from 23.5 in 1970. And the proportion of over-40s mothers has trebled in three decades from 4.9 per 1 000 in 1984 to 14.7 per 1 000 in 2014.

Doctors tend to warn women not to leave it too late – emphasising that with age fertility drops, the chance of complications increase and the chance of birth defects also rise.

But Warwick, who is due to stand down this week after nine years at the helm of the RCM, said the risks were being overplayed. “Even if you have your baby at 42 or 45, it’s a relatively small increase in risk to you if you’re otherwise healthy,” she said.

“I’m not sure why we’re so worried about the age issue and I’m not sure we should be terrifying women about it.”

She also said women should feel no guilt about bottle-feeding their baby, despite years of campaigning for more breastfeeding.

“If women don’t breastfeed, I don’t think they should feel guilty,” she said.

“We have to say ‘breast is best’ because it is, but what’s best for the population is maybe different from what’s best for the individual woman, and individual woman can successfully bond with their baby and bottle-feed their baby.”

Warwick’s views on age are in direct contrast with those of many leading fertility doctors, who say many women leave it late to have children because they don’t realise the risks.

The British Fertility Society has warned that celebrities who have children in their 40s are giving women false hope about late motherhood.

Chairperson Adam Balen said the celebrities with”miracle babies” will often have used IVF or donor eggs.

Due to the fact that they they do not make this public, their fans fail to realise the fertility issues and health problems that may result. – Daily Mail