CINCINNATI (Liz Bonis) - The average age for new moms is changing.
A report from pregnancy experts said it was now the highest age it's been in history. Researchers looking at the age of new moms found fewer teens were giving birth. That's a good thing, but many women were also waiting until they were older to even start a family.
Researchers in the report said that meant the average age of a first time mother was now 26 and four months; the highest it's ever been. Ob-gyns from University Hospital Case Medical Center said delaying the start of a family can introduce new complications that mothers should talk to their doctors about. According to the women's health specialists, women in their late teens to late twenties have the fewest problems with pregnancies. But the chance of complications increases after age 35. It jumps higher after age forty.
The odds of a baby born with Down syndrome goes up and as the odds of just getting pregnant and carrying that pregnancy to term go down. They said it was possible that women can even become infertile before going through menopause.
Experts in the report point out there was no one time that was right for every woman, so people just need to have a conversation anytime they are considering getting pregnant. It's critical for women at any age to look at the months before even getting pregnant to learn what they can do to up the odds of having a healthy baby. That's often called the 13 month pregnancy, where people start taking vitamins and doing many of the things they would do if they were already pregnant, to set themselves up for success.
