Fertility Treatments and Older ParentsPosted by admin on October 14th, 2009
They’ve been all over the news lately: the costs and consequences of fertility treatments, such as IVF and IUI. Articles like this one from The New York Times explain the real concerns that prospective parents should have regarding multiple births, especially the complications that arise from prematurity. Given the high cost of these insemination procedures, it is understandable for people to be thrilled at the idea of getting more than one baby, but the risks have a ripple effect on the health care industry, the mother’s health, and, scariest of all, the babies’ futures.
While I believe that fertility drugs and procedures are necessary for some people who have legitimate problems getting pregnant, it worries me that so many people feel okay about putting off babymaking because they know there is a fallback plan if it doesn’t happen naturally. Our career-focused culture encourages later partnering and delayed parenthood, and ignores the lasting effects of producing a generation of less healthy children — babies who, if they are not multiples with severe problems from premature birth, often have health problems associated with their mothers’ age (anything from asthma to Down’s syndrome). Older mothers have a higher rate of Cesarean births and longer, more difficult labors. In addition, older moms are more likely to have difficulty breastfeeding because of the conflicting hormones of simultaneous pregnancy and perimenopause. (La Leche League International)
Of course, there is a certain amount of common sense in waiting until you are financially secure to have a baby, but 2009 has taught us that even this kind of security is fleeting. Because of the exorbitant costs of higher education in America, college graduates spend much of their 20s and 30s struggling to pay student loans, and are lucky if they can ever reach homeowner status (which is, ironically, also an unlucky title in many cases). If you’re waiting until you have enough bedrooms to house your new bundles, you will likely be in the higher risk, over-35 category of parents.
There are many unknowns when you have a baby at 21, like I did. But I’d take the kinds of unknowns that arise from living in one-bedroom apartments and finishing college over the ones that could permanently damage my child’s (or my) health. Even with my young age and complication-free pregnancy, I gave birth at 35 weeks. Prematurity is often unexplained, and is scary enough when you are at average risk for its occurrence. I cannot imagine choosing to take a greater risk by placing two, three, or more fertilized embryos in implantation position.
Granted, I also don’t understand what it’s like to desperately want a child and not be able to have one. That would be the most devastating news of my life, and I was lucky to have been able to conceive sans intervention. Do we need to address the educational and economic circumstances in our country such that our children don’t have to wait until they are 40 to be comfortable becoming parents? Or is conception by whatever means necessary just an individual decision with isolated consequences?
If fertility treatments contribute to longer stays in the NICU and lower rates of breastfeeding, I say they are a social problem at the same time that they allow greater freedom of choice.
To what extent should we be able to dictate a biological event such as procreation? If simply letting it happen –when our bodies are most prepared for it to happen — is fighting all of the things we have decided are good for us, eventually there won’t be any viable “us” left to climb the proverbial career ladder. Is that really creating a better world for our offspring, or is it presenting them with the most difficult challenge of all?
Loading ...