Geena Davis, the 48-year-old Oscar-winning Actress Expecting twins, her publicist reports. Although Davis is apparently doing well, experts tell Celebriti Scoop that other parents in their midlife may not have it as simple.
Pregnancy issues such as gestational diabetes, hypertension, and hemorrhage, as well as miscarriages and chromosomal abnormalities like Down syndrome, are more common in older women. According to a research published in the Obstetrics and Gynecology journal in February 2000, women over 40 are more likely than younger women to experience the unexpected loss of their pregnancies.
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Nevertheless, an increasing number of women are postponing having children for a variety of reasons. Additionally, these women are experiencing safer pregnancies than ever before because to advancements in the treatment of infertility and enhanced prenatal care.
This celebrity is by no means the first to break pregnancy news after turning forty.
According to Pamela Madsen, executive director of the American Infertility Association in New York, “there has been a lot of hype with celebrities like Madonna and [actress] Jane Seymour getting pregnant, and that’s great news, but we have to remember that the majority of women trying to get pregnant in their 40s are not going to succeed.” Fertility treatments, such as using donor eggs, may be a possibility for some women.
“Women’s fertility rates drop significantly after age 30, and at 35 they plummet again, and after 40, it starts to get pretty dismal,” she told Celebriti Scoop. “Our eggs start to age the moment we are born, and there is nothing physicians can do to stop this process. Mother Nature wants us to have children in our 20s and 30s, and she’s absolutely not a feminist.”
Nonetheless, according to Donnica Moore, MD, president of Sapphire Women’s Health Group in Neshanic Station, New Jersey, “one of the things that we learned from Madonna is that being in good health is more important than age.”
Preserve Your Expectancy (Actress Expecting)
She tells Celebrity Scoop that “the basics are all the same,” regardless of a woman’s age at conception. “The most important things are to get proper pre-conception counseling and to begin taking prenatal vitamins containing 400 micrograms of folic acid the second you decide that you want to start trying to get pregnant,” according to her.
B vitamin folic acid, when taken before to and throughout the first few weeks of pregnancy, may help reduce brain and spinal cord birth abnormalities.
Furthermore, “nobody should smoke, especially not pregnant women, and super-duper especially not pregnant women older than age 40,” Moore states.
Medical surveillance is crucial for older pregnant women, according to Gregory DeVore, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine expert at the Fetal Diagnostic Center of Pasadena, California.
He told Celebriti Scoop that a genetic amniocentesis at 15 to 18 weeks is crucial since it can identify most chromosomal abnormalities and spinal cord disorders like spina bifida with 97% accuracy.
In order to conduct this test, medical professionals insert a thin needle into the mother’s abdomen and extract a little quantity of the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus. Prenatal testing, including amniocentesis, should be made available to all women who will be 35 years of age or older at the time of birth, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ recommendation.
“Women older than 40 should have ultrasound at 20 to 22 weeks of pregnancy so they can look at the heart and identify any heart defects,” explains DeVore. “Also at this appointment, we measure arterial blood flow to check for intrauterine growth retardation [of the fetus] or toxemia [pregnancy-induced high blood pressure].”
And at 32 weeks, he said, “If there is a problem, I recommend eight weeks of bed rest. We will do an ultrasound to evaluate fetal growth.”
“If you do these things, I am very optimistic about the outcome,” he declares.
