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During a conversation about becoming a parent, a friend said that having babies at 35 or older are considered “geriatric pregnancies.” I cringed hearing the word “geriatric” used that way and wondered why my friend was so out of touch.
He obviously was unaware that it’s now common for women to wait until they are older to have babies for reasons that range from finishing their education to reaching what they feel is a good time to take “a baby break” from their jobs or careers, or until they believe that they are financially secure enough to afford the cost of raising a child.
Against that backdrop, calling such persons or pregnancies “geriatric” seems even more obtuse. What’s more, trying to conceive earlier doesn’t guarantee it will happen. Some spend years trying to become pregnant.
As someone who had her child “older” than the national average of age 27 for first-time mothers, I strongly object to the term “geriatric,” as do most women who had or hope to have their children later.
Defining “geriatric”
What do you think when you hear the term “geriatric”? I think old, feeble, not aging well, and needing help. Geriatrics is an entire specialty area of care for people who are mostly over age 65. Nonetheless, like my friend, many obstetricians, gynecologists, and other medical professionals persist in labeling the pregnancies of women over 35 as “geriatric.”
One possible explanation for the use of this outdated label is that as the age of a woman increases—and particularly for those in their mid-30s and older—pregnancy-related risks may also rise. Whatever the medical rationale, though, the use of “geriatric” in reference to women having babies at or after 35 feels insulting and inaccurate by the usual interpretation and understanding of the adjective.
My friend’s comment irritated me enough to revisit my notes from the Only Child Research Project, during which I spoke with many women who were well into their 30s and 40s when they became parents. On occasion, those who volunteered to be part of the study talked about themselves as “older,” but not a single person used the word “geriatric” or implied that they were too old to have babies or care for young children.
Still curious, I touched base with three young women who had babies recently to find out if the term “geriatric pregnancy” remained in use. What they told me gave me hope that “geriatric” could be changed or dropped when linked to later or “older” pregnancies.
Candice* had her baby at age 42. She said, “‘advanced maternal age’ was the diagnosis code they used during my infertility treatments. Fortunately, no one ever called me geriatric!”
Joella* was not so lucky. She was 36 when her son was born. “Some of the doctors and support staff I encountered called my pregnancy ‘geriatric,’ then they would laugh and remark, ‘It’s so silly that it’s called that.’”
Ashley*, who was 41 when her child was born, didn’t recall anyone specifically saying “geriatric pregnancy.” “It was mostly ‘advanced maternal age,’ but it was implied that I was old.”
“Forty is the new 30,” Joanne Stone, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, joked during a CBS Sunday Morning segment. “Everybody’s older. If you have somebody [a patient] that’s 28, it’s like a teen pregnancy.”
That’s not to say that women who have babies later than average, or into their mid-to-late 30s or 40s, don’t face any challenges. Stone says that waiting to become pregnant has its risks. Fro example, being at an “advanced maternal age” can mean facing higher rates of infertility and pregnancy complications.
According to Michelle Y. Owens, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and a Fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “Even with all the understandable talk of ‘windows of opportunity’ and ‘biological clocks,’ there are ways for women over 35 to make motherhood a reality.” When discussing women having babies in their late 30s or 40s, she points out, “the good news is we have the tools to detect and respond to pregnancy complications early…Age is less of a limitation than it used to be.”
Pregnancy Essential Reads
Given the expertise to monitor pregnancies closely, social and cultural shifts, and advances in assisted reproduction technology (ART), it seems highly likely that the uptick of later childbearing will continue—and calling any pregnancy “geriatric” will be more widely considered archaic and pejorative.
In defense of mothers in their 30s and 40s
No one who has a child in her mid-to-late 30s or 40s should have to hear the term “geriatric pregnancy” or be referred to as “old.” Now seems to be the time to make the shift, and for the medical profession to uniformly move away from that label altogether and use alternative terms like “later motherhood” or “advanced maternal age” – or just drop such labels altogether.
We may be older, but we are not geriatric material quite yet…especially in light of the benefits for women and children who have their babies later. The only across-the-board truism about “older mothers” is they are more likely to have fewer children. The reasons why women wait help to explain the plunge in the birth rate and the rise in only children.
* Names have been changed to protect identities and privacy.
Copyright @2024 by Susan Newman, Ph.D.
