Pregnancy risks after 30.

More women are choosing to marry after they have established their career, and more couples are choosing to start their families at a later age. Today, physicians are seeing more older women getting pregnant after 30 first-time mothers, and more of these mothers are having safe and healthy pregnancies than women their age did in the past.

We have found that an older woman considering pregnancy has two major concerns. She wants to know how the pregnancy will affect her and how her age will affect her pregnancy. There is a slight increase in the possibility of complications for the mother and baby when the mother is older. You may also want to read Your Pregnancy after 30, which focuses primarily on pregnancy in older women.

A pregnant woman older than 30 may be more likely to face increased risks of the following:

    * a baby born with Down syndrome
    * high blood pressure
    * pre-eclampsia
    * Cesarean delivery
    * multiple births
    * placental abruption
    * bleeding and other complications
    * premature labor
    * pelvic pressure or pelvic pain

In older pregnant woman must also deal with problems a younger woman might not face. A broad simplification of this is that it is easier to be pregnant when you are 20 than it is when you are 40. Chances are, by age 40 you have a job or other children making demands on your time. You may find it harder to rest, exercise and eat right.

Maternal problems with increasing age include most of the chronic illnesses that tend to appear as age increases. High blood pressure is one of the more common pregnancy complications in women over 35 (see Week 31). There is also a higher incidence of pre-eclampsia (see Week 31). Older women who give birth have a slightly higher risk of abnormalities and problems, including premature labor, pelvic pressure and pelvic pain.

The chance of diabetes, as well as complications of diabetes, increases with age. Researchers cite figures showing that twice as many women over age 35 have complications with diabetes. In the past, hypertension (high blood pressure) and diabetes were major complications in any pregnancy. With today's advances, we can manage these complications of pregnancy quite well.