Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think all the women out there who are advocating that women wait until their mid 40s to have children have NO IDEA that perimenopause exists. Or how women's bodies work.
Do they just think you can go to the right doctor and request a baby? At any age?
I guess you can? If you just buy the fertility of a younger person?
I don't think anyone anywhere is really "advocating" women wait til 45 to have a baby, they're just not pissed off what those who do.
+1 I don't really know anyone who thinks it's better to have a baby in your 40s than before that. But the people I know who had babies in their 40s did so because it was their last (and sometimes only) chance to have a biological child, and they wanted that.
Also, to the "but biology" folks -- women have always gotten pregnant in their 40s. Look through history and you will find many, many women who had pregnancies and babies after 40, usually after having other kids. Before birth control and legalized abortion and women's rights, giving birth was the expected job of many/most women, and you were expected to do it until you couldn't. Plenty of 40+ women were still biologically capable of having kids, and also weren't given the option of not having them, so they did.
Women having IVF babies in their 40s are simply doing something women have always done, only more safely and on their own terms. If they are using frozen embryos from when they were younger, they can even avoid many of the risks associated with having babies at 40+. They have better medical care and access to better options than women in the past did, making it far less likely that the pregnancy will harm them or the baby (40+ pregnancies have always been a thing, but 40+ maternal and infant death used to be a lot more common).
If you don't like to see women in their 40s having kids, make it easier for people to have kids earlier and see what happens. Right now the trend is going the other direction -- people are waiting longer and longer because of the costs of childcare and the lack of support for families.