As more and more women delay childbirth, Israeli researchers conducting a study on older new mothers found that 80 percent of them experienced health problems during their pregnancies, and nearly half of their babies were underweight, according to a study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.
In Israel, the number of women over 45 giving birth for the first time has more than tripled over the last 10 years. Improved in vitro fertilization reproductive technology is helping more and more of these women become mothers.
The research, which seems fairly intuitive, was conducted in Israel between 2004 and 2008, with 131 new mothers aged 45 and 65. In the study, 40 percent of women developed pregnancy-related diabetes, and 20 percent had preeclampsia, a potentially dangerous condition that includes high blood pressure. One third of the babies were born prematurely, and nearly all were delivered by a cesarean section.
“This study shows that pregnancy after the age of 45 is in fact a risky proposition, and this provides a basis upon which women of this age group can be counseled" about those risks, said Dr. Richard Paulson, director of the in vitro fertilization program at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in the study.