New mums are leaving it till later

Irish women are waiting longer to have their babies.

A 2012 report published by the ESRI showed that in 2010 first-time mothers were almost two years older giving birth compared to 10 years earlier.

Overall, women are having babies older, with almost 28% aged 35 and over in 2010 and women giving birth at 45 and older stood at 12 in 2000, 31 in 2005 and 56 in 2010.

“For every 100km you go from East to West in the world, mothers are becoming older, averaging in their 20s in Eastern Europe to early 30s – over 31 in Ireland,” says Dr David Walsh, medical director at Sims IVF.

“Women are delaying childbirth – there’s no doubt about that,” says Professor Fionnuala McAuliffe, spokesperson for Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in Ireland, who works at Dublin’s National Maternity Hospital, where “numbers of women giving birth at 40 and older doubled between 2000 and 2010”.

“Increasingly, patients are coming to our clinic in their early 40s, where historically it would have been the late 30s. Early 40s is a sizeable minority of our clients – those presenting older than 45 would be exceptional,” says Walsh.

At Clane Fertility Clinic, the average age of women attending was 37 in 2008 – by 2011, they were a year older. And the proportion of over-40s women looking for fertility assistance went from 26% in 2008 to 33% in 2011.

Brinsden sees “a whole load of factors” behind this. “Women are waiting because they’re pursuing professional careers. They haven’t met Mr Right. So many younger men don’t want to settle down. Women reach 30 and think ‘I’ve got a couple of years yet’. At 35, they say ‘well, I can get IVF’. At 40, they realise ‘Crikey! I’ve rather let it get late’. A lot expect miracles. You have to sit down and explain that, although they may feel in the prime of life at 40, their eggs are not, and they’ve got a 10% chance of having a baby.”

Fertility midwife specialist and manager of London-based Zita West Group, Anita O’Neill finds Irish women quite private and secretive about fertility. (O’Neill does monthly clinics in Ireland). “They’re often trying to conceive for four to six years before they seek help, largely because they don’t talk about it. I meet women who started trying for a baby at 34 and I’m only seeing them at 40.”

Why this happens is multi-faceted, says O’Neill. “Many women think if they’re still getting periods they can get pregnant. And trying not to get pregnant is so much in the psyche of Irish women that when they start trying they assume it’ll happen within a month – on average, it takes eight to 12 months to conceive.

“And when women do try to get help, there are no right pathways of care to access fertility assistance. Health professionals tend to tell couples either to ‘keep trying naturally and sooner or later you’ll get pregnant’ or ‘we’ll send you for IVF’. But there’s a huge spectrum in between where women can help themselves,” says O’Neill. Self-help ranges from being fertility-aware to having lots of sex, from reducing caffeine to quitting smoking. “On average, eggs age two to three times more quickly if you’re a smoker. Many UK clinics won’t do IVF on a smoker.”

O’Neill doesn’t believe women wait because they want to have the lot. “That’s not what I see in my patients. They’re not saying ‘I’m going to be a lawyer at 25, head of the group at 35 and have a baby at 40’. Many women meet their partners later in life. They don’t know age is such a factor in female fertility. They get cancer in their 30s or they’re looking after relatives who are ill. Life circumstances get in the way.”