Email a Friend
Print ArticleInformation and Resources
This article is from the WebMD News Archive
Madonna's Announcement Calls Attention to Pregnancy After 40
March 23, 2000 (New York) -- Always a trendsetter, Madonna, the 41-year-old singer and actress, confirmed Monday that she is pregnant with her second child. While the one-time Material Girl seems to be in perfect health and can probably look forward to a healthy pregnancy, the majority of midlife moms may not have such an easy time, experts tell WebMD.
Among pregnant women, advancing age increases the risks of chromosomal abnormalities including Down's syndrome as well as miscarriage and other complications such as gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and bleeding. A study in the February issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that women over 40 are at higher risk of experiencing the sudden death of their fetuses than their younger counterparts.
Still, for a variety of reasons, growing numbers of women are delaying childbirth. And advances in treating infertility and improvements in prenatal care are making pregnancy safer than ever before for these women.
"There has been a lot of hype with celebrities like Madonna and [actress] Jane Seymour getting pregnant, and that's great news, but we have to remember that the majority of women trying to get pregnant in their 40s are not going to," says Pamela Madsen, executive director of the American Infertility Association in New York. For these women, fertility drugs or procedures including the use of donor eggs may be options.
"Women's fertility rates drop significantly after age 30, and at 35 they plummet again, and after 40, it starts to get pretty dismal," she tells WebMD. "Our eggs begin aging the minute that we are born and one thing that doctors can't do is make our eggs young again. Mother Nature is definitely not a feminist and she wants us to have children in our 20s and 30s."
But "one of the things that we learned from Madonna is that being in good health is more important than age," says Donnica Moore, MD, president of Sapphire Women's Health Group in Neshanic Station, N.J.
Regardless of a woman's age at conception, "the basics are all the same," she tells WebMD. "The most important things are to get proper pre-conception counseling and to begin taking prenatal vitamins containing 400 micrograms of folic acid the second you decide that you want to start trying to get pregnant," she says.
Folic acid, a B vitamin, can help prevent birth defects of the brain and spinal cord when taken before pregnancy and in the early weeks of pregnancy.
Further, "nobody should smoke, especially not pregnant women, and super-duper especially not pregnant women older than age 40," Moore says.
Gregory DeVore, MD, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Fetal Diagnostic Center of Pasadena in California, says medical monitoring is key for pregnant older women.
del.icio.us
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
-
7
-
8
-
9
-
10
-
11
-
12
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
-
7
-
8
-
9
-
10
-
11
-
12
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
-
5
-
6
-
7
-
8
-
9
-
10
-
11
-
12
Boosting Your Breasts Without Implants
A breakthrough procedure gives women who want bigger breasts, but don’t like the idea of implant surgery, a new option.
