Becoming a mother after 50 is more and more common in the United States, as in Europe. Mediated by celebrities, late motherhood is not without risk.
Despite the risks incurred for the mother (hypertension, diabetes, bleeding during delivery, death) and the child, late childbearing is more and more frequent. For the first time in the UK, the number of mothers over 35 has even exceeded that of mothers under 25.
Is 35 years old a psychological barrier for women wishing to have children? Not really, after Italian actress Monica Bellucci (45), Swiss billionaire and businesswoman Margarita Louis-Dreyfus announced on Monday that she was pregnant with twins. She is 53 years old.
For those who do not know it, remember that these maternities are possible thanks to the various techniques of medically assisted procreation (MAP, in particular the use of donated oocytes), authorized up to 50 years in Spain, Belgium or Greece.
Three times more in 15 years
In France, the 98 births to mothers aged 50 and over registered in 2014 seem marginal out of the approximately 800,000 babies born that year. However, that number has more than tripled in less than 15 years, according to official statistics, despite age restrictions for using assisted reproduction. In the United Kingdom, the babies of 50-year-old mothers already number in the hundreds per year (154 births in 2012), their number has more than doubled in 4 years.
In the United States, where the figures are also increasing, of the four million births, 8,500 of the mothers were women aged 45 and over, Gretchen Livingston, an American researcher, told Agence France Presse (AFP).
Feeling of “injustice”
In an interview with Why actor in 2014, Prof. François Olivennes, obstetrician and infertility treatment specialist, confided: “It is striking to note that the life expectancy of women 150 years ago was 50 years. She could finally have children until pretty much the end of her life. Today, this life expectancy has almost doubled, but on the other hand, the duration of fertility has not changed. And the problem is there: today, a 40-year-old woman who cannot bear children has not even reached half her life expectancy; she finds that completely unfair. But her fertility, from 38, 40 years old, is low ”.
Egg donation after 45 years
So to fill this injustice, Professor Olivennes specified “that there is no age limit, but beyond 45 years, a woman enters an area where pregnancy is dangerous, at risk. Fortunately, the risk is not 100%, but complications can occur in 20 to 30% of cases. After this age, we warn women. Over the age of 45, egg donation is most often used. This egg is given by a young woman, we fertilize it with the husband of the 45-year-old woman and an embryo is obtained which is placed in the uterus of this woman ”.
Legislation side, the law is rather vague in matters of medically assisted procreation, it speaks of “a couple of childbearing age”. So, since there is no medically defined age, doctors estimate it to be around 45-50 years old. Margarita Louis-Dreyfus therefore had to look elsewhere than in France to see her desire for motherhood continue.
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