How old is best to have a baby

Remember that as you get older, it may take you longer to get pregnant. This is because it gets harder to get pregnant after 35 , and your risk of experiencing infertility goes up.

But, if you are financially secure and at a stable point in your life, and you know you want to have kids, your biological clock is a good excuse to start trying now and not wait longer. Three good reasons to decide never to have kids include:.

Seems obvious, right? We're not talking about an accidental pregnancy here. Then, there are those who wanted children but then find themselves unexpectedly in the never camp. Maybe they have a medical condition that would make having children difficult, for them or their kids. Or they work with children in other ways. But why say never and not later? Or maybe? Good question. The main reason is to give yourself a sense of closure.

As long as you keep trying, or as long as you keep open the possibility of having kids in your mind, the harder it is to process this unexpected change in your life plans. Mirowsky conducted interviews with 1, mothers, asking about their current health, including chronic illnesses, mobility problems, and self-assessments of malaise and other problems. Then he looked at mortality data, made some adjustments for educational attainment, and concluded that the overall "best age" for a first child, in terms of long-term health and mortality for the mother, was Social pressure that delays the beginning of parenthood, he wrote, "greatly outweighs the biodevelopmental advantages of youthful organs.

Mirowsky put it bluntly in a comment to a reporter for the Daily Mail : "A woman who had her first child at 34 is likely to be, in health terms, 14 years younger than a woman who gave birth at At the time the article was written , Loren was 70 years old and still received "as much praise for her health and beauty as she did as a young screen siren. A different assessment of the long-term health of older mothers presents a slight complication, at least for women who want to have more than one child.

While having a first baby at age 34 might be fine, this other study suggests, what's even more fine is to have a last baby before age After adjusting for social factors that affect health race, age, income, health insurance coverage, smoking , he compared the health status of two groups of mid- and late-life women: those who had any births after age 35, and those who had finished having babies by then. So this wasn't looking at age of first birth; it was looking at 35 as a cutoff for age of last birth.

Women who had had babies after age 35, Alonzo found, had higher systolic blood pressure, higher blood glucose, poorer health as assessed by a physician, and poorer mobility later in life than women who had had all their babies before This doesn't contradict Mirowsky's findings, exactly. It just means that two different studies came to two slightly different conclusions, and it would be mighty tricky to abide by both of them. But try your best to not let that label intimidate you — successful pregnancy after 35 is still common!

But what about after 40? While the road to getting pregnant may be harder for some after a certain age, others may sail through relatively easily.

There are many factors at play, including things like your current health status and how close you are to menopause. It starts when you get your first period and stops when you reach menopause. As time goes on, your chances of having a successful pregnancy become less and less as your egg reserve diminishes, your egg quality decreases, and your hormones change.

Fertility rates trend with the average number of eggs a woman has at any given age. In general, you begin puberty with between , to , eggs. This number drops to around 25, at age 37 and continues dropping to 1, or fewer by age How does this look exactly? Well, the likelihood of becoming pregnant naturally without medical assistance after a year of trying is as follows :. By the time you reach 40, only 1 in 10 women will get pregnant each cycle. Regarding women who undergo artificial reproductive technology ART , live birth success rates follow a similar decreasing trend with age, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC :.

Related: A look at your fertility timeline. Menopause is defined as the stopping of the menstrual cycle for a year or longer.

Most women reach this milestone somewhere between their late 40s and early 50s, with an average age of around 51 years old. Generally, women enter perimenopause sometime in their mid 40s, but some may hit this point as early as their mid 30s.

For example, a year-old woman in India gave birth to twin girls in In New York, the average age that a woman has her first baby is 31, compared to 20 or 21 in rural regions of South Dakota and Texas. These age differences may be due to both financial differences and cultural norms.

Some individuals might be biologically ready to have a child in their 20s but not in the right place financially and emotionally. This does not mean that they have missed the opportunity to have a child. Individuals must consider all factors before making a decision that suits them. However, women must be aware that they cannot have a baby after menopause. The average age of menopause is 51 , and most people will experience a significant dip in hormones in the years leading up to menopause.

While there is no specific age at which males can no longer conceive, their sperm does change and reduce in number as they age.

Although many males are still able to conceive in their 60s and beyond, their sperm may not be as genetically healthy. If people miss their biological window for having a baby, it may still be possible to have children via the use of donor sperm or eggs, adopting an embryo, or adopting a child. While people can still have children if they miss their financial or psychological ideal times, they may find having a baby more stressful, more exhausting, or less rewarding. While fertility declines with age, most healthy women are biologically able to have a baby until menopause, and most healthy males are still fertile in their 60s and 70s.

As people age, some risks associated with pregnancy and birth increase. There is no single right time to have a baby that works for all people. Instead, people must weigh the risks and benefits and then make a decision that feels consistent with their values and goals for the future. What are the recommendations for how long women should wait before resuming sex after pregnancy? How does giving birth affect sex?