How worried to be about birth defects with advanced maternal age?

[Anonymous]

I had mine at 41 and 43 via IVF and did NIPT testing around 11 weeks. I didn't to PGS testing prior to implantation, because at the time it was prohibitively expensive. I have two healthy kids and had no complications in my pregnancies, but definitely went into it with my eyes wide open as to the risks and options for termination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had mine at 41 and 43 via IVF and did NIPT testing around 11 weeks. I didn't to PGS testing prior to implantation, because at the time it was prohibitively expensive. I have two healthy kids and had no complications in my pregnancies, but definitely went into it with my eyes wide open as to the risks and options for termination.

Wow. Very old and risky

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your age is not the issue - you are still young. The issue is that you now have two kids and so the toll and impact of something going wrong with the third would be more difficult to manage. The stakes are higher now and that can’t be changed. He has a lower tolerance for the potential impact of something going wrong. I don’t think you can change that with data. I think you can just both talk through your hopes and fears and see where it gets you.

this. the problem is not your age, which is relatively young, the problem is that there is always risk of undetectable defect or pregnancy complication. this can happen whether you are 20 or 30. it could have happened with your previous children as well, but didn't. you were lucky. do you want to roll the dice again? this is the question you are facing, not the impact of age, which does exist but it's still small at 36-37.

Another agree with this. I had my first 2 kids at 31 and 33, then a third at 37. It is actually my middle kid who has ADHD and mild Autism. So we knew going in to having #3 that we had a kid with SNs and we decided we could handle whatever else came along with our third (who is thankfully showing no signs of any delays or health issues). So there ya go that it was a baby I had under age 35 that has SNs.

I’ll add that even if you have a healthy third baby, any of your kids could get sick/injured in the future, or face mental health challenges. There just isn’t any guarantee in life of having healthy children.

So I’d factor out age because 37 isn’t a huge risk in itself, but be honest with yourselves about whether you have the resources for 3 if things aren’t picture perfect the whole 18+ years. In our case we have flexible jobs and financial stability/family help so we felt okay taking the leap to having a third. But we know this is our limit.