The “risk zone” for women who delay having children until their thirties could be much earlier than previously thought.
New research suggests that while it was once understood pregnancy risks for first-time mothers were highest for women in their mid-to-late thirties, the risk age has been found to be much earlier, with 20 per cent of women aged 30 and 34 having a higher risk of premature and stillbirth.
“To our surprise we found an absolute increase in risk for negative effects on pregnancy outcomes in the age group 30-34,” said Professor Ulla Waldenström, who led the study by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the University of Bergen.
“These are independent of the effects of smoking and being overweight, which, when combined, lead to an even greater risk.”
Professor Waldenström’s team collected data from one million first-time mothers across Sweden and Norway.
They compared the results of pregnancy in first-time mothers over the age of 30 to those in the age group of 25 to 29.
While in the past, new mothers in the 30 to 34 age group were not seen as being at risk, Professor Waldenström said the physiological effect of ageing on the womb and placenta was likely to explain the higher rates of complications.
Professor Waldenström said many women were putting off having children until their thirties and risking not becoming a mother at all because of increased rates of risk and infertility.
“For women individually, the risk is small, but for society at large there will be a significant number of ‘unnecessary’ complications with so many women having children just after 30,” she said.
“It would therefore be advisable to inform both women and men, even at schools, of how important age is to child birth.”
The findings are especially relevant to women who want to have more than one child, which meant the age of the first was important.
“Biologically the best time is probably 20 to 30,” she added.
The findings were reported in the scientific journal Obstetrics And Gynecology.
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