Getting pregnant in 40’s – What are the chances & risk involved?
Dr. Sarita Jain
Sep 8, 2018
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Getting pregnant in 40's - What are the chances & risk involved?
The chances of getting pregnant decline with increasing age of the ladies. Only and about 75% women with age of 30 years are able to conceive after trying for nearly 1 year in comparison to 45% women with age of 40 years. When women reaches to her 30s mid the quality of her eggs start declining and its quantity also decreases.
The eggs of an older woman are not able to fertilize so easily in comparison with younger women. Even, with use of advanced technologies like IVF, the success rate of this kind of procedure is declining. This means that fertility rate is markedly not increasing among women of age 40 to 44 years.
Risk involved in getting pregnant in 40’s -
Pregnancy in wrong location - Ectopic pregnancy is pregnancy outside the womb. Women above 35 years of age are 4 to 8 times likely having ectopic pregnancy as compared with younger women. The risk of ectopic pregnancy is higher because of accumulation of different factors like pelvic infection and other problem related to fallopian tubes. Main symptoms of this condition are abnormal bleeding, abdominal pain but most of the time, it come without any prior symptom. Usually a surgery or an injection is required to treat this problem.
Weight and obesity - Being either underweight or overweight can cause many complications in pregnancy. Obese women are at high risk in comparison to women with normal weight and as a result baby will come with certain defects. These defects include hydrocephaly, spine bifida, heart problems and cleft lips and palate. Not only this, obese women likely to be diagnosed with gestational diabetes during pregnancy and this will make your blood pressure high. It can also lead to smaller baby than expected and increase risk of pre-eclampsia.
Chromosomal problems - Due to many chromosomal issues, women over 35 years of age can have difficulty in having a child. Down syndrome is mostly common defect which is related to chromosomes. It can cause many physical abnormalities and intellectual disability. But, there is no need to worry as prenatal screening can help in determining complications relayed to chromosomes.
High blood pressure - In older mother’s risk of pregnancy hypertension is more. This leads to risk of developing condition like pre-eclampsia; it is basically a pregnancy complication with main characteristics of high blood pressure. This complication also gives signs of damaging many other sense organs often kidneys. If pre-eclampsia is left untreated then it can be life threatening to both baby and mother.
Conclusion - If you are planning to get pregnant in your 40’s, then there are number of things which you must be familiar with. So, the above mentioned risks are something which you must know about.
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