Pregnancy at (20 years - 25 years)
Advantages
- Your chances of having a healthy baby is much higher as your body are in the prime of fertility and the risk for complications, such as hypertension or gestational diabetes, is low.
- You may not develop bad stretch marks as your skin is tighter and the fascia covering the muscles is tauter and can regain its tone faster.
- You are young and have more energy to take care of the baby. You are physically more strong to take care of your little one.
- As the eggs are younger, the chances of chromosomal aberrations occurring in the baby are much lower at this age. ( 1 in 1250 pregnancies may have babies may have downs syndrome) This ratio increases with age.
Disadvantages
- You and your partner may not be financially independent yet to take on the additional responsibility of a baby, so you may be dependent on the grandparents.
- Younger couples may not have the patience and maturity to take care of a baby and may end up with more quarrels.
Pregnancy at ( 25 years - 35 Years )
Advantages
- You are still young enough to have a healthy baby, but natural fertility of women is in its downhill path from age 30 ( the infertility rate for women age 26 to 29 is 9 percent, increasing to 15 percent for 30- to 34-year-olds)
- Probably starting or established in your career. Many women face a dilemma at this point - As they feel motherhood may mean the end of a successful career and postponing motherhood further would probably lead to complicated pregnancies later.
- Finance may not be a problem, especially if you are working. Insurance cover may take care of pregnancy and childbirth
- More mature mentally and can take good care of the baby. May still have some youthful energy and may be easy to handle parenthood
Disadvantages
- Skin is not as tight as before and the fat content begins to increase with age and muscle content comes down, thus the stretch marks developed during pregnancy may take longer to disappear or may remain
- Miscarriage rates rise to 12 percent to 15 percent. Down syndrome risk remains low until age 30, when it is 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 400 for any chromosomal abnormality; by 35,
Pregnancy at age 35-40
Advantages
- Maybe at the zenith in terms of career
- Maybe strong financially
- More mature mentally with age and can handle the ups and downs of parenthood better with more patience
Disadvantages
- Hypertension affects 10 percent to 20 percent of pregnant women in this age group (versus 4 percent to 7 percent for women ages 20 to 25); gestational diabetes is two to three times more common in women age 35 and older than in younger women
- One in 4 pregnancies among women in this age group will end in miscarriage, and the risk of chromosomal abnormalities goes up exponentially: At 38, the risk of any chromosomal abnormality is 1 in 100.
- Many women may find it hard to take care of a child at this age, due to physical weakness and also because they have been used to a particular routine for the past 2 decades of their adult life without kids and now to adapt to a new life with a baby can be a task.
Having listed out both advantages and disadvantages of each age group, it is for you to decide which is best for you. But, by far, being a mother myself, I feel - Pregnancy and being a mother can be a life-changing beautiful experience - age really doesn’t matter.
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