While previous research has linked what’s known as advanced maternal
age to problems like high blood pressure and diabetes during
pregnancy and a higher risk of death and severe complications for
babies, the current study offers fresh insight into the severe
health issues faced by older mothers, said lead study author Dr.
Sarka Lisonkova.
“This is important for counseling women who contemplate delaying
childbirth to their forties,” Lisonkova, of the University of
British Columbia Children’s and Women’s Health Center in Vancouver,
said by email. “While a delay of childbirth by a few years does not
make a large difference in the early thirties, a few years delay in
the late forties increases the risks significantly.
For the study, researchers examined data on all singleton births to
828,269 women in Washington State from 2003 to 2013.
After adjusting for other factors that can influence pregnancy
outcomes like whether it’s a first-time pregnancy or if women are
obese or used assistive reproductive technology, researchers
compared age-specific rates of maternal death and severe
complications like obstetric shock or amniotic fluid entering the
mother’s bloodstream.
Compared with mothers aged 25 to 29, women aged 35 to 39 were 20
percent more likely to have severe complications, and the odds were
more than quintupled for women 50 and older, researchers report in
PLoS Medicine.
Women 35 and older were also eight times more likely to have
amniotic fluid enter their bloodstream, a complication that can
cause a life-threatening allergic reaction, the study found.
Mothers 40 and older were almost 16 times more likely to have kidney
failure and almost three times more likely to have obstetric shock,
when organs don’t get enough blood and oxygen, the study found.
These women were also almost five times more likely to either have
complications from interventions done to help deliver the baby or be
admitted to intensive care units.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove how
maternal age directly influences the odds of complications.
Researchers also didn’t have enough cases to determine how age
directly influences maternal deaths.
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Even so, the findings add to evidence linking advanced maternal age
to a higher risk of problems for mothers and babies, said Dr.
Nanette Santoro, a researcher at the University of Colorado School
of Medicine in Aurora who wasn’t involved in the study.
While many of these problems can be managed surgically, the study
highlights some rare complications that are harder to treat and can
be fatal like renal failure and amniotic fluid entering the
bloodstream, Santoro said by email.
“Based on this study and others, the ideal age to get pregnant is
between 25 and 29 years,” Santoro said. “Since we’ve just entered
the first era in human history where the U.S. birth rate is higher
for women aged 30 to 35 than for women aged 25 to 29, we will be
seeing more aged-related risks to women who conceive at later ages.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2rBYV7I PLoS Medicine, online May 30, 2017.
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