advanced maternal age

[marymom]

ok you birth pros, a question;
What age was/is the most eldest mother you attended/observed at delivery?
Additional comments regarding circumstances will be read with interest.
Thanks,
Mary

[mendomidwife]

50 - attempted a home birth but had thick meconium and ended up transferring to hospital. delivered a healthy baby NSVD.

Carla

[heartandhandsdoula]

I don't know the details but my MW had a 47 yo mom deliver at home.

[courtenay_e]

There's a 47 yo mom in our LLL group. Thought she was going into menopause. Had her third baby instead. Her next youngest is in her mid-twenties, and is pregnant with her first and due in a few months. They'll be seven months apart. She had a normal healthy unmedicated vaginal labor and birth.

[marymom]

thanks.
any issues with gestational diabetes?
Did these moms do the additional testing, CVS,amnio?
also,
dear Heart and Hands, did you take Eliz Davis' H&Hs course?
~Mary

[madhavi]

my mom had my brother at 42, 13yrs after me. she had a 1 1/2 hr labor. no problems at all. the only testing she did was the normal stuff and had one ultrasould b/c she had some spotting.

[DoomaYula]

My bff's mom was 45 when she was born. Another one who thought she was going through menopause... makes me a little worried about menopause! Anyway, all went well, and my bff has neices and nephews who are older than she is!

[mwherbs]

45 I think---
my grandmothers were in their middle to late 40's when they had their last babies .

[AzariaJordan]

52 yrs old, having #5. Straightforward, gentle 4 hr labor. No problems with GD, hypertension, etc (she was a massive woman - would probably be classified as obese - but had a generally healthy diet and lifestyle). No amnio, CVS...only US was a quick one in the third trimester to check for placental location.

She shook her head several times during our work together and said,"This sure is different than when you are in your 20's!" I think she was a little weary

[bryonyvaughn]

I remember a piece 20/20 did about ten years ago on Arceli Keh. She got married in her 40s and wanted to have a child. She signed up with a fertility program that only accepted women up to age 55. She lied and told them she was 50 instead of 60. She eventually got pregnant with a donor egg and her husband's sperm and had a child at the age of 63. There was a huge dust up about it with scads of folks feeling entitled to make ethical and moral judgments about her.

I just thought it was a ridiculous ruckus. She and her husband lived with her mother *and* she plotted and successfully managed to hide the entire pregnancy from her until after the birth. That is such a classic teenage stunt I found it funny that folks would say she was too old to have a baby.

BV, who wanted to hide her 8th pregnancy from her mother to avoid the grief

ETA: Here's an article on the story

[sweeetpea]

The oldest mom I've supported two 44 year old moms having their first. One was a successful hospital vaginal birth, one a c-section for a true physiological problem that prevented vag birth. They both did the gamut of prenatal testing. No problems. They are both planning a second child sometime this year.



Sweetpea

[4C-mom]

I've seen a 46 year old woman on our l&d unit. thats the oldest i remember. seen several, several over 40. its not even something i'd bat an eye at. Had a handful having their first baby after 40 as well.

some had no issues, healthy babies. Some had problems (pprom for 7 weeks, pprom and subsequent cord prolapse, ptl) WE had some who conceived without assistance, and some who needed much assistance getting pregnant.