Education Guide

After being almost mother-adolescent (a pregnancy at 19 and another with 22), decide to have another child aged 42 was, above all, fun. From the beginning, I have found grace in my boldness. Just think, felt a shiver of fear and pleasure, a great feeling, a nervous laugh roller coaster. I wondered: will I be brave? Good thing I had!

Before removing the IUD, talk with the gynecologist revealed the size of the risk, but provided a great satisfaction. Given my fear of the great likelihood of having a baby with Down Syndrome, my husband and my youngest daughter (then aged 19) have shown how I was being prejudiced and narrow-minded. He was proud of the stance lucid, intelligent and steady of the two, who advanced to positions more consistent with what he thought about life and the world. That’s how we prepare ourselves to receive love and joy with a completely healthy child or not.

A first pregnancy was spontaneously interrupted a few weeks. After a quarantine period, the new attempt was a success and Gabriel entered the world in November 2007, when I was 44!

According to the obstetrician-gynecologist Hueb Armindo, my fear of conceiving a child with structural defects is the same one with the highest number of women who decide to become pregnant after 40 years of age. Among these anomalies, Down syndrome is the most common.

Specialist in high-risk pregnancies, he said the woman suffers from wear due to the possibility of having a child with problems. And that ends up influencing the decision about when to get pregnant or not. “It’s interesting: what is most frightening is the risk of creating a fetus with a structural anomaly. The deadline does not revolve around the woman, but the expected product of conception, “he stressed.

From 35 years of age, the risks increase statistically. “A woman of 18 is one in 800 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome. At 35, her chance is one in 400. At age 40, the chance of having a baby with Down syndrome is one to 50. It quadruples the chance of her in five years, “he said.

This is due to loss of quality of oocytes (eggs before ovulation), over the years. “He endured all that the woman has in life. Pesticides, ionizing radiation, drugs, their own food, the natural oxidation of age, stress. All this eventually led to the deterioration of some components that involve cell maturation and abnormalities occur there. ”

The majority of pregnancy loss through the first quarter is due to abnormalities in the embryo and not the mother. “The pregnancy interrupted at the beginning is more linked to genetic abnormalities or birth defects than difficulties of pregnancy. It depends much more on congenital or genetic quality of the embryo, what may represent in terms of health of the embryo than the health of the mother, “he said.

Armindo Hueb said his wife of 40 years is not preoccupied with itself, because it is considered capable of becoming pregnant. “It speaks, I support a pregnancy, my body supports a pregnancy. But she’s got a shot at least four times higher in relation to a woman of 35 years of having a baby with a structural anomaly. ”

The obstetrician-gynecologist believes that today, most women are aware of the increased risk at age 40. He said the patients are divided between the right time to get pregnant and professional life, but have information to measure how long they can expect. “They come to talk at the boundary with 35, 38.”

Advanced age is also a threat to the mother. The risk of pregnancy is a diagnosis of exception. Any pregnant woman who escapes the statistics of normalcy prevailing in some aspect is framed as a risk. The age of 35 years is one of them.

The woman’s aging increases the incidence of some diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. “In most cases, women with older are living with anomalies that are common in age. The more advanced age, the higher the incidence of disease and higher incidence of complications. ”

The age of risk has increased along with the life expectancy of women. But the limit for pregnancy remains the same: the number of eggs that she carries, and that was set before birth. This stock, statistically, is sold out between 48 and 52 years, when women experience menopause.

The doctor makes a warning to women who delay pregnancy, most often by professional issues. “There is a risk management, a choice that women have to do. Historically, women have a great age for fertility is around 25 years. It is the best age to get pregnant when she reaches the peak of maturity and the hormonal general health. It’s the best of it. From there, the body will feel a decrease in general, “he said.

Armindo Hueb said that the difficulty in becoming pregnant was minimized in terms of available treatments such as artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, intracytoplasmic injection of genetic material. And so the women end up dealing better with the difficulty of becoming pregnant than with fear, once pregnant, having a child with some sort of problem.

“Today, with the techniques of assisted fertilization, a decrease of feeling of difficulty getting pregnant. Technology has helped a little these women to reduce this fear. Now, with the risk of structural abnormality could not get to that point, we are not able to offer such help to women, the risk remains, “he said.