HEALTH ISSUES FACING A ‘GERIATRIC’ MUM – AGED 37!

AT 37, Meghan will be one of the oldest, first-time royal mothers.

She’s part of a growing trend for women to leave motherhood late. Indeed, mums-to-be over the age of 35 are called ‘geriatric’ by doctors.

The numbers over 40 having babies have now overtaken the under-20s for the first time in almost 70 years. ‘There are certain medical risks associated with older women,’ says Dr Jenni Byrom, consultant at Birmingham’s Women and Children’s Hospital.

One of them is gestational diabetes – a form of diabetes that only occurs in pregnancy – with the risk in older mothers three to six times greater.

It can cause a baby to grow much larger – which raises the

risk of a challenging delivery. It can also increase the chances of high blood pressure.

Women over 30 are also more than twice as likely to suffer from high blood pressure – known as hypertensive disease of pregnancy. The incidence of pre-eclampsia – very high blood pressure that can put both mother and baby in danger – is doubled, to about 10 per cent, in women over 40 as compared with those ten years younger.

To avoid complications in over35s an increasing number of hospitals are inducing the baby. However, obstetrician Dr Peter Bowen Simpkin, says induction ‘can result in a long and exhausting labour and result in the baby getting into distress’. The danger of miscarriage is also greater in older women. A further issue is the increased risk of Down’s Syndrome. According to the NHS, a 30-year-old woman has a one in 800 chance of having a Down’s baby. This climbs to one in 270 over the age of 35.

However, there is no reason why the majority of older women shouldn’t have a healthy pregnancy – as long as they are carefully monitored and look after themselves, says Dr Byrom.