As women enter their thirties, those who someday want babies become acutely aware that they are drawing nearer the age of 35. The age that has been touted as the time when women are considered “geriatric” by pregnancy standards. An age where women should fear that they are not going to become pregnant easily. And if they do, there are risks of birth defects that come with each pregnancy. It is like a switch flip and something happens to the female eggs right after they turn the magical age of 35 that women need to fear. A thought process that needs to change.
Women are made to feel that if they are in their late thirties that becoming pregnant is something they need to weigh the pros and cons on. That it does not matter how healthy they are, they are doomed to deal with pregnancies that would have been so much easier had they gotten pregnant in their twenties or even early thirties. And while there are greater risks with pregnancy the older women get, many women have healthy, happy babies, something that should include in the talking points of doctors after women turn 35 as well.
Here is what happens to your eggs right after turning the magical age of 35.
Why Turning 35 Is Significant
The age of 35 is considered to be the “advanced maternal age” when it comes to pregnancy, according to FamilyDoctor.org. This is because around this age, the number of eggs that women carry decreases significantly every year. And because of this, it can make getting pregnant harder than it would have been a decade earlier.
According to Extend Fertility, not only does the number of eggs decrease yearly, but the quality of the eggs that remain is of a quality that is not as superior as they were in their twenties. This is why women are warned about the chromosomal changes that occur with eggs at this stage of life. Something that occurs with one out of 100 eggs, according to University of Rochester Medical Centerversus one out of 1,250 for those in their twenties.
Does this mean that women are doomed to have difficult pregnancies? Absolutely not. What it means is that women need to be more cognizant about their health and know that they are going to be monitored more closely during pregnancy than they would have had they had babies earlier in life.
What Happens To Fertility At 35
To begin talking about fertility, what needs to be discussed first is the number of eggs that women have. This number, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine refers to the “fertility potential” women have. The older that women get, the number of eggs along with the quality is something that begins to decline, per the publication. But by just how much varies for each woman.
According to CNY Fertility, when baby girls are born, they have between one and two million eggs. Many of which will die before developing at the start of puberty. As such, when puberty happens, per publication, there are only about 300,000 to 400,000 eggs available to develop.
As women enter their thirties, those numbers begin to rapidly decrease. As such, at the age of 30 women may only have 100,000 to 150,000 eggs in reserve, according to CNY Fertility. At 35 years of age, those numbers drop to 80,000. And the closer women get to 40, the fewer still will be viable for pregnancy.
Therefore, there are still eggs ready to be developed at the age of 35. But when those numbers deplete month after month and year after year, fertility is affected. And it can be more difficult to become pregnant as a result.
Possibility Of Having Babies After The Age Of 35
Not surprisingly, as the number of healthy eggs continues to decline after the age of 35, it can become more difficult to become pregnant as well. But, getting pregnant is not impossible.
According to WebMD, women who are in their twenties have about a 25 percent chance of becoming pregnant every month. While this feels like low odds, for women near the age of 40, per publication, that number drops to five percent.
Along with the decrease in fertility, women also have a 40 percent chance of the pregnancy ending in miscarriage, according to WebMD, something that happens 15 percent of the time when women are in their twenties.
With that said, it is not impossible to become pregnant after the age of 35. Far from it. But women do need to realize that the older they become, their window to be able to conceive without assistance decreases rapidly.
Because of this, women may want to consider freezing their eggs so that when the time is right for them to have babies, they have the best chances possible with the healthiest of eggs having been harvested. Something that may just help to silence that biological clock as well.
Source: FamilyDoctor.org, University of Rochester Medical Center, Extend Family, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, CNY Fertility