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POSTPONED PREGNANCY

Women who postpone pregnancy at a later date are seriously at risk of becoming childless, over-evaluating their abilities and possibilities of modern medicine and partly under the influence of propaganda. The assurance that it is possible to have a child even after 41 years is based on full ignorance.

More women in countries with relatively high per capita incomes and a relatively developed health care system do not understand the possible consequences of their decision to postpone pregnancy and believe that existing assisted reproductive technology is able to reverse the age-related changes in reproductive function, the authors of the analytical report say in Yale University, the results of which publishes magazine Fertility and Sterility.

“The level of women illiteracy regarding this issue is becoming more and more alarming, as well as misunderstanding what steps a woman should take when she decides to give birth late”, – notes one of the authors of the article, Dr. Pasquale Patrizio, a professor at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Yale School of Medicine, as well as the director of the Yale Center for the Study of Fertility.

The report of Dr. Patrizio and his colleagues is based on the experience of communicating with female patients over 40 who visit the Center in full confidence that the medicine will help them get pregnant, and are very upset when they find out that it is very difficult to do. The worst thing that they cannot give a birth.

“In our clinical practice, there are many such outraged patients who are not able to have their child after 43 years, we are obliged to report about it. They usually react to bad news like this:

What does that mean, “I can not»? I am young, healthy, in excellent physical shape, and I can not give birth to a child?”,

Dr. Patrizio complains of failed mothers.

Healthy young women are in no hurry to have children for many reasons – because of the need to make a career, financial instability, uncertainty about the future or because of the lack of a permanent partner. They are aware that the reproductive function has an age limit, but the seriousness of the situation is realized only at the time of receiving the diagnosis “infertile” when a woman is finally able to have a baby, doctors say.

“Advanced” cosmetics, fitness classes, diet, the syndrome of “eternal youth”, as well as the cult stereotypes of beauty, distributed by advertising and the media, make modern women look in 45 years old like 35.

But this is a very deceptive and dangerous illusion, since the reproductive age bracket is just in the middle of this “saved” gap.

The growing popularity of assisted reproductive technology plays a great role, suggesting that pregnancy can be manipulated at any age, constantly reinforced by the gossip chronicle of celebrities who do nothing but give birth to children at a rather mature age, “having received everything from life”.

Let us turn to statistics.

According to the Society for the Development of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (SART), during the period from 2003 to 2009, the number of in vitro fertilization operations (during IVF, the ovum is removed from the woman’s body and fertilized artificially in vitro, the resulting embryo is kept in an incubator 2–5 days, after which they are transferred to the uterine cavity) has increased by 9%.

Over the same period, the number of IVF procedures with the women older than 41 years increased by 41%, so, this age group is one of the main consumers of this technology, which does not guarantee pregnancy at all.

“Even in spite of the fact that the number of women who addressed to IVF has greatly increased during this period, the proportion of artificial fertilization operations ending with pregnancy and childbirth remains unchanged – 9%. Also, do not forget that the elder a woman becomes pregnant, the higher is the risk of pregnancy termination, birth injuries and other complications” the authors emphasize.

The authors of the report call for combating ignorance and reassessing the role of additional reproductive technology, which mislead modern women.

“We, as doctors, should be engaged in the medical education of women more deeply. Women should receive objective information about the risks of postponed pregnancy and the extremely limited possibilities of medicine for those who decide to have a child after 41 years”, says Dr. Patrizio.

But despite all the risks listed above, the young woman still does not want to have a child at the age most favorable for reproduction, it is necessary, without postponing to think seriously about future motherhood right now.

The best technology for women who decide to postpone a pregnancy, but want to do it “someday” pass on their genes to their offspring remains the technology of a frozen ovum.

An alternative option is a donor ovum which provides the best results for an artificial pregnancy, but a woman should inherit her genes that have passed on to the child, although she may experience all the joys of motherhood – childbearing and childbirth.

It is necessary to explain clearly and intelligibly to women who are not in a hurry to get pregnant that age-related changes in the reproductive function apparatus are irreversible and nature cannot be deceived. And, more importantly, the risk of future infertility can and must be prevented right now — there are proven and affordable technologies that should not be considered experimental. Doctors and specialists should begin a professional discussion of the problem we have mentioned. They should also honestly convey this knowledge to the public and be confident that young women are fully aware of the real possibilities of modern medicine.

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