Women wait till their 40s to have babies

The USA is in the midst of a baby bust as birthrates fall in every age group of women except for one: women in their

40s, according to government statistics released last week.

Though most babies are born to women in their 20s and 30s, the rise of older moms reflects a long-term shift to delayed childbearing.

It reflects the experiences of women such as Karla Webber, 44, of Dunwoody, Ga. She had her son Grayson 18 months ago after one lost pregnancy and six rounds of fertility treatments costing nearly $100,000.

Before marrying her husband at age

37, “I chose my career, frankly, over everything,” Webber said. “But once I was in love and I found this amazing man, I was all about starting a family.”

Births among women ages 40-44 have been rising since the early 1980s and kept rising in 2017, even as the over- all U.S. birthrate fell to a record low, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its report. Births in women over 45 held steady.

Women ages 40 to 44 had 114,730 of the 3.8 million babies born in 2017; women 45 and older had 9,325.

Medical professionals who see older women seeking pregnancy say the factors driving the trend include:

❚ Careers: Many women in their 20s and 30s are completing educations and starting careers. They feel unready, financially and otherwise, to have babies, said Eve Feinberg, assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

❚ Partners: Some women wait a long

Births among women ages 40-44 have been rising since the early 1980s and kept rising in 2017, even as the overall U.S. birthrate fell to a record low.

time “to find the right person to have a baby with,” Feinberg said. By 40, they may go ahead with or without that perfect partner, said psychologist Andrea Mechanick Braverman, a clinical associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry and human behavior at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

❚ Optimism and determination: Many women have confidence — and sometimes overconfidence — in their own fertility or the ability of doctors to help. “They see all of these celebrities having babies in their 40s and 50s, and they think they can overcome all odds,” Feinberg said.

It is true that fertility doctors can offer older prospective moms more help today than in the past. But biology still imposes limits.

A woman’s natural ability to become pregnant begins a steep decline around age 37, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.