61-year old Mother

well we have an age limit in Denmark, as you yourself point out, set for this very reason, the problem is, there will allways be some part of the world where there isn't.

and while its fantastic that science enable us to have babies that late, its quite stupid to do it, that mother will most likely die while the child is in her teens or maybe before, whats even worse is, that the mother will most likely not be able to take care of the child in around 10 years.

one can hope that this case at least will cause a debate in EU and maybe lead to a set of EU rules instead of each country having quite different rules.

my own opinion is that the Danish rule, with a 45year limit is quite could allthough i could see it being raised to 50years.

 

Blokes can do it naturally (Charlie Chaplin for example) so it doesn't seem an entirely awful prospect that the advancement of science makes it possible for Women. (Provided that they pay for it)

I don't think they have really thought it through though...

 

Very selfish, thats all I can say about people like her.

 

Why is it selfish? I had a friend who was 'unexpected.' His parents were in their 50's when he was born. They both were retired and collecting social security when I met him (he was 12). I would say he was treated better and shown more love and affection than most of the kids I knew. He had a very stable family life.

As long as they treat the child with love and affection (and have a well prepared will with a good guardianship section) there is no problem with older people having children. The only problem is with those prejudiced against elderly raising families.

 

I agree that is is very selfish. What kind of upbringing will the child get with parents that old? He'll get picked on at school big time and have to endure unhappiness from a young age. Plus the fact that his parents may very well die before he's out of his teens, meaning his upbringing is cut well short. She's having a baby because SHE wants one, without thinking of the consequences for the poor little thing.

 

Hold on to your socks, but on this one I agree with Cuch. Accidents happen and you have to live with them, but my impression is that she used modern science in order to get pregnant. It is a very strong possibility that the child will end up an orphan, and to me that just isn't right.

 

t2 your example was an accident with parrents a bit youn ger then her. this one is was a choice, she went to england and got inseminated on a madical clinic in england (becouse its illigal to do it in denmark on people older then 45), it was completely her choic to get pregnant so late in life.

all statistics says she will be dead before the child turns 18, hell she will be 75 when the child reaches puberty. its a completely selfish choice.

@barmy, the child is a she

 

Wow - I guess I'll add my two cents.

First, I'm assuming when people ask if there should be an age limit as to when a woman can have a child, that we're talking about using science and technology to assist in having a child. If a woman is biologically capable of having a child in her 50s without turning to artificial means, then it's obviously OK.

Now we turn to the legal side of things. Medical centers that assist in artificail insemination have to be public - they cannot discriminate based on religion, race, creed and most important to this arguement - age. However, the government is also perfectly in its rights to make laws for the good of the people. If it is deemed that 60-somethings having children is a bad thing, they can certainly legislate against it. But that can be tricky too - is their an age limit on when people can adopt children?

As for my personal feelings, I do not think that medical centers dealing with artificial insemination should be required to take clients who are beyond the normal biological age of which a woman can get pregnant on her own. As a result, I feel that the 45 year limit is a bit too young, as most women that age still have at least a few years left before they hit menopause. I think I remember hearing that the average age of menopause was 51, so extending it to that point would be reasonable. I guess I think that if you waited until you were 51 before you decided having a child would be nice thing to do, tough luck.

 

Selfish and she'd better have damn good life insurance.

 

I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but I do have a degree in biology (and biochemistry), so maybe I can help a bit.

What Montessor says is true: A woman is born with all of the egg cells she will ever have. A baby girl is actually born with several thousand egg cells, out of which only several hundred will ever be released to be fertilized.

What Tal says is also true - older women do have a significantly greater probability of having children with some type of birth defect. However, it is not so much because of the DNA being old, but rather that the egg cell has a much greater chance of getting an entire extra chromosome.

All of the various trisomies (with trisomy meaning having three of a particular type of chromosome as opposed to the standard two) is high during the early childbearing years, so girls younger than 16 have a higher than normal chance as well. After 16, the chance drops dramatically to a very low level when a woman is about 20 years of age. After that is increases steadily as the woman ages. The increase is quite slow throughout the 20s and 30s, but increases dramatically once the woman gets in her 40s.

The exact age at which this increase occurs varies from woman to woman, and at no point does it ever become "likely". I'll give you some percentages here for comparitive purposes. The odds of a 25-year old woman having a child with trisomy is less than 0.3%. A woman who is 45 however has a 4.5% chance. While 4.5% is not likely, it is 15 times more likely compared to the 25-year old.

Prior to the common use of birth control and other contraceptives (which has only been around for about 40 years now), women routinely had children into their 40s. The vast majority of those children were completely normal. People don't suddenly stop having sex when they hit their 40s, and people having children later in life was quite common well into the 20th century. Heck, my father-in-law has an uncle and an aunt that are *younger* than he is. That's because his mother was the oldest of 9 children, and her first child (my father-in-law) was born before her mother (my father-in-law's grandmother) was done having children.

So, while it is certainly true that the chance of birth defects increases dramatically as the woman ages, I think many people over-estimate the amount of that increase. I think a lot of people assume that a woman in her late 40s or 50s is more likely than not to have a child with a birth defect, when in reality there's always a 90+% chance of the child being completely normal. As another example that more people will be able to relate to, vice presidential canidate John Edwards still has some very young children. The youngest of which is only 6 or 7, and was born when his wife was 51. (Edwards' wife is older than him - he was born in 1953, but his wife was born in 1949.)

Now having said all that, I still do not think it is right for people to have children in their 60s. The time of menopause varies greatly, but I doubt there are many women still capable of having children naturally at 61. Also, it is extremely unlikely that we even have a full handle on what the risks are of a 60-year old having a baby, as the sample size of 60-something new mothers has to be very small.