The Risks of an Older Pregnancy

Joanna* stared at the monitor as her unborn baby’s heart rate crashed. It was 5 a.m., and the first-time mother was exhausted: She’d been in labour for almost 20 hours and was only dilated one-and-a-half centimetres. Things weren’t progressing. Suddenly, everyone in the room began shouting as doctors rushed to prep the 38-year-old for an emergency C-section.

When Joanna married her husband, Ahmet, in 2011, they wanted to start a family right away. She was worried her age would be an issue. But she conceived naturally two months after their wedding, and all the tests came back better than fine. There was no way to anticipate what was going to happen: Joanna’s placenta began prematurely separating from her uterus wall.

 It’s a condition known as placenta abruptio and can cause profuse bleeding during delivery. Cut off from vital nutrients, Joanna’s baby was asphyxiating. The condition is relatively rare, but like so many complications related to childbirth, its likelihood increases as a woman grows older. The caesarean was successful, and a daughter—Ayla—was born healthy.

 But it could have gone very badly. Hemorrhaging could have sent Joanna into shock, endangering her vital organs. As for Ayla, the doctors’ quick response likely saved her from dying in utero; by quickly removing Ayla and the placenta, they rescued both mother and child.

All of this was news to Joanna. “No one really told me that my age could affect the pregnancy so dramatically,” she says. She’s not alone. Joanna hadn’t intended to wait so long; she just happened to be that age when she found her husband. But many women have put off marriage and parenting to more firmly establish their careers.

Along with facing higher odds of placenta abruptio, older women are twice as likely to develop placenta previa, where the placenta blocks the cervix, putting the mother in danger of bleeding to death.

 Older women are also at increased risk of pre-eclampsia, a condition related to high blood pressure which can cause strokes and seizures as well as affect the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the baby. The biggest threat to the child is premature birth, also known as preterm birth (in which a baby is born at least three weeks ahead of time).

Source: Reader's digest