Source: Guardian >> Read full article and comment
They are stereotyped as high-flyers – but new figures show many other reasons for late motherhood
By Denis Campbell, health correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 30 May 2010
“Mothers over 40 in record baby boom”, ran a front page headline last Wednesday. The accompanying story relayed a set of Office for National Statistics (ONS) data – last year’s annual birth figures for England and Wales – that underline a cultural revolution in childbearing that began in the 1980s and is gathering pace. Doctors keep warning of the risks involved in older motherhood, but growing numbers of women clearly are not listening.
To recap: the number giving birth in their 40s has almost trebled in 20 years, from 9,336 in 1989 to 14,252 in 1999, then to 26,976 last year – the highest ever. The number of 35- to 39-year-olds producing offspring is also rising. It went from 81,281 to 114,288 between 1999 and 2009. Overall fertility increased in the past decade, admittedly but, significantly, these two age groups account for a growing proportion of all births. All this late-stage baby-making explains why the average age at which a woman gave birth last year reached 29.4 – another record.
So who are these women? The latest ONS data tell us little, frustratingly; further analysis is being done, but will not be published until September. However, the agency’s in-depth look at 2008′s birth stats offers fascinating insight into that question. Late motherhood is basically a middle-class phenomenon, right? Yes, so it seems, which may be of little surprise. An examination of which parts of England and Wales had the highest rates of older mothers in 2008 reveals a sharp north-south divide and so almost certainly a similar social class division... Continue reading
