What we’ve suspected for a while is official: more women are giving birth in their forties. It’s not just a celebrity thing. The birth rate for women ages forty to forty-nine has risen significantly between 2004 and 2005 and is at its highest rate in more than thirty-six years, according to Preliminary Data for Births in 2005, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics*. Specifically, the birth rate of women between forty and forty-four years rose by 2 percent to 9.1 births per 1,000. And women ages forty-five to forty-nine had its first increase since 2000 to 0.6 births per 1,000.
Just because you can give birth in your forties doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily an easy process. Mentally and physically, it’s much harder for older women to go through labor and raise children while likely juggling pre-menopause symptoms and/or caring for aging parents. To put the struggles into perspective, I spoke with Nancy London, M.S.W., author of Hot Flashes, Warm Bottles: First-time Mothers Over 40. This best-selling author of Our Bodies, Ourselves gave birth to her daughter at age forty-four. A former runner who now takes daily dance classes, Nancy thought she was prepared for motherhood. She wasn’t prepared for the sheer exhaustion; hormonal fluctuations; and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of support for older moms.
“I was having trouble finding information and support about giving birth at forty-four. To be unidentified [in the media] with no information and no support was quite strange.” Nancy grew up nursing on the women’s movement and figured if she got pregnant later in life, surely others had too.
With that thought in mind, she set out to start support groups in Sante Fe, New Mexico by visiting her local radio station for interviews and putting up flyers in health food stores. Soon, she had a support group and now conducts several and concludes that support, whether from a formal group, or just with friends and neighbors, is critical when a first-time, older mom.
“Nine out of ten women in my support groups say at one point: ‘I don’t want to complain, but I’m completely exhausted. This is hard. What’s wrong with me?’ We are a very youth-oriented culture. Having a child later in life—whether adopted or by birth—affects our bodies differently,” she says.
In her book, Nancy outlines various ways forty+ moms can maximize time with their children, without trying to compete with the twenty-something moms.
One strategy is to have the younger moms of your child’s friends host the more active play-dates and then reciprocate by hosting low-key ones, such as sleepovers where you’re in charge of movies and hot chocolate.
“My daughter and I devised all kinds of ways to spend yummy time together. We would go to movies, museums—a lot of things that didn’t require me putting on rollerblades and go tearing down the street with her. I can’t pretend I’m twenty-five years old and put on spandex and break a hip,” Nancy says with a laugh.
While it is important to set limitations, Nancy also emphasizes staying in shape and working out. This is especially important as many children of older parents begin to realize how much older their parents are compared to their friend’s parents.
“There was a time when my daughter was young that I was sick with the flu. She actually told her friend that I was dying. I was shocked. For my book, I interviewed children of older mothers and their responses were both hilarious and serious—it’s a big issue,” she says.
For that reason, Nancy advises older moms to explain to their children that yes, they may die earlier than their friend’s parents, but it won’t likely happen any time soon and they are taking good care of themselves. She also says that when starting back into an exercise regime, to not tackle it like you would in your thirties.
