It’s 2011 and today’s modern women are busy, busy, busy – to the point where pregnancy after 40 is becoming an increasing trend. We’re constantly on the go from the age of 18: we go to university, study hard and perhaps go on to graduate school. Then we spend lots of time and energy looking for a good job to pay off college. Once we get a job, we work hard, long hours trying to advance in our career and sometimes it takes years to become an established name in our field. In our free time we’re off taking yoga classes, hitting up the farmers market with girlfriends and if you’re lucky, taking adventurous trips to foreign countries.
After we get our dream job and have explored life to its fullest, it’s time to settle down and think about finding a partner and starting a family. For a lot of us, this doesn’t happen until we’re in our late 30s and early 40s. During these years, many women find getting pregnant to be more of a challenge than it might have been than if they were 10 years younger and end up consulting one or more infertility experts.
Women’s ovary function starts slowing down around the age of 35 and on top of that, 10% will experience premature ovarian aging. That means healthy egg production could be slowing down at an even younger age. The slowing of ovarian function does not mean that a woman loses her ability to become pregnant at all. It just means she may need the help of infertility treatment. Fertility centers are seeing a steady increase in the treatment of women over 40. The methods of treating aging ovaries is through outside egg donation, DHEA treatments to jump start egg production and IVF and have seen positive success rates.
Further reading: The High Cost of IVF
Continue Reading
