It’s a risky business, yet more older women are choosing to become mums
By Sarah Berry
By a woman’s mid-40s, the possibility of spontaneous conception or IVF success “approaches zero”, say experts.
Even if they do become pregnant, “overall the risks are probably higher today compared to many years ago”, says Associate Professor Alex Polyakov, an obstetrician, gynaecologist and medical director of Genea in Melbourne.
Yet, Naomi Campbell had her daughter when she was 51 and her son when she was 53, via surrogate; Hilary Swank was 48 when she gave birth to twins Aya and Ohm; 44-year-old Gisele Bündchen is reportedly pregnant to her partner, jiu-jitsu instructor Joaquim Valente; while Australian model and television presenter Erin McNaught just gave birth to her third child at 42.
The rise of older celebrity mums reflects a broader trend. In the past decade, there has been an uptick in the number of people giving birth over the age of 40.
Emma Scott was 48 when son Sebastian was born.Credit: Edwina Pickles
In Australia in 2022, 80,753 women were aged 35 or over when they gave birth, an increase from just over 41,400 in 1999. And the rate of women giving birth aged 40 or over has increased from less than 1 per cent in 1999 to 5 per cent in 2022.
So, what’s driving the trend? And how have the risks of the “geriatric pregnancy” changed?
The obvious answer to the first question – assisted reproductive technologies (ART) – is not the complete answer.
Elective egg freezing isn’t having an impact, says Professor Georgina Chambers, director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology and Statistics Unit at the University of NSW. “Only about 10 per cent return to use those frozen eggs.”
However, she says, ART is still an important factor.
In 2017, almost one in five babies born to women aged 40 to 44, and almost one in three babies born to women aged 45 and above, were conceived using ART.
For celebrities giving birth in their 40s, it is no different.
“With IVF, it’s a numbers game,” Polyakov says. “The more you try, the more likely you are to succeed.”
Most people stop treatment because the emotional, psychological or financial toll of failed attempts becomes too great. “Some of these celebrities, however, have unlimited funds, so they can have this treatment repeatedly indefinitely.”
But, ART is not the only or indeed the most significant factor driving the trend.
“[It] has to do with improved educational and career opportunities, financial barriers to having children, and later partnerships or women deciding to have children without a partner,” Chambers says.
In 2022, more than one in three (34.6 per cent) of embryo recipient cycles were in single females or female-female couples.
The most common issue Polyakov sees, from women looking to freeze their eggs, is the “unavailability” of a good male partner.
“It’s not the women who are driving this change. In my opinion, it’s the men,” he says. “Men don’t want to settle down too early.” Dating apps where there are endless opportunities to remain uncommitted don’t help, Polyakov says. “It’s not so much that women choose a career over having a family; it’s mostly that they don’t have anyone to have a family with.”
The prevalence of women having a child with a second partner is also contributing to the trend. About 12 per cent of Australian households are now made up of blended families.
Whatever the reason, having a baby at 40 and beyond is a risky business.
Not only is it harder to get pregnant in your 40s (about a 5 per cent chance of a natural conception), it’s also harder to stay pregnant (about a 40 per cent chance of losing the pregnancy, compared with someone in their 20s whose chances of miscarriage are less than 15 per cent).
“The risk of miscarriage cannot be modified,” Polyakov says. Nor can the risk of chromosomal abnormalities such as Down syndrome, which increase “exponentially” in our 40s.
Women can, however, decrease the risks of certain conditions, such as gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, via exercise and good nutrition, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking or drinking excessively and not using drugs.
However, our weight typically increases with age, and nearly 60 per cent of women in their early 40s are overweight or obese.
The combination of risk factors from age and weight is “a double whammy”, Polyakov says. This, alongside the likelihood an older woman has a chronic disease, which is becoming increasingly common, or has a history of serious health issues, is why he suggests pregnancy later in life may be riskier today than it once was.
The long, tough journey was worth it: Emma Scott and her son Sebastian, 2.Credit: Edwina Pickles
When natural conception or IVF don’t work, some older women turn to surrogacy, where the success of a live birth from a clinical pregnancy is nearly 82 per cent.
For 50-year-old brand strategist Emma Scott, the decade-long journey to having son Sebastian was “very tough”, but worth it.
Scott, from Sydney’s north shore, always dreamt of having a big family, yet six years of trying to conceive naturally in her 30s, then two years of IVF, had not worked.
After accepting the painful reality she would never become a mum, and channelling her energy into her fledgling tea business Tiger Purr chai, she was introduced to a friend’s brother, who ran a surrogacy agency.
Scott and her husband’s first embryo transfer to their chosen surrogate, who was based in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, was successful.
But as the surrogate was pregnant when the pandemic hit, rules around travel and legislation around surrogacy in Georgia changed, throwing Scott and her husband’s plans into disarray. It was “a very long, hard process” to get permission to fly over for the birth, then a six-month legal battle to obtain parental rights.
Would she go through it all again to have Sebastian? “Absolutely, 100 per cent.”
“Now I’m a mum and I have a two-and-a-half-year-old, it’s very real, and I’m very tired.”
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