By Katrina Woznicki, MedPage Today Staff Writer
LONDON, Sept. 16 - The vast number of women who have postponed childbearing into early middle age has led to a public health threat that physicians need to address, say three prominent British obstetrician-gynecologists here.
Women who delay childbearing into their late 30s and 40s risk infertility, miscarriage, complicated pregnancies, delivering children more vulnerable to illness, and, ultimately, immense heartbreak, according to the authors of an editorial in the Sept. 17 issue of the British Medical Journal.
These are all risks that physicians could help reduce by encouraging women who want children to pursue a family during their reproductive prime, wrote Susan Bewley, M.D., of St. Thomas’ Hospital, Melanie Davies, M.D., of University College Hospital, and Peter Braude, M.D. of Guy’s, King’s and St. Thomas’ School of Medicine.
Dr. Bewley chairs the ethics committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Dr. Davies is president elect of the Medical Women’s Federation, and Dr. Braude chairs the scientific advisory committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
“A major preventable cause of this ill health and unhappiness is unacknowledged,” they wrote. “Public health agencies target teenagers and ignore the epidemic of pregnancy in middle age. Doctors and health care planners need to grasp this threat to public health and support women to achieve biologically optimal childbearing.”
This optimal reproductive window occurs between the ages of 20 and 35, yet many women delay starting a family to climb the career ladder, the authors wrote. However, this delay comes at a price, since age-related fertility problems increase after age 35 and dramatically so after age 40.
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