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Re: 63 years old and pregnantFrom: paul297@juno.comFri Apr 25 09:11:29 1997
New York Times April 25, 1997 Pregnant At 63? Why Not? By MARCIA ANGELL Marcia Angell, a doctor, is executive editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. BOSTON -- To any middle-aged mother, having a baby at age 63 probably seems like a colossally bad idea. Imagine the constant backache at that age, the 2 A.M. feedings and the endless diaper changes. Didn't nature arrange for us to stop doing this sort of thing after our mid-40's? But nature has been overruled. It has recently been announced that a 63-year-old woman gave birth late last year to a healthy baby girl. A doctor implanted into her hormonally primed uterus an embryo created in a test tube with her husband's sperm and a young donor's egg. The woman's doctor, Dr. Richard J. Paulson, said she had lied about her age to get around his age limit of 55 years for in vitro fertilization. The 63-year-old woman was not the first postmenopausal woman to have a baby, only the oldest. In the last several years, doctors have pushed the age barrier higher and higher. So we now must contemplate the curious possibility of women on Medicare becoming pregnant. Many people are probably offended, even repelled, by postmenopausal women having babies. To many observers, it seems somehow unethical; they believe that if a woman doesn't know any better, her doctor should. There will probably be calls to regulate this technology and forbid women of a certain age from receiving in vitro fertilization. This would be a mistake. Why is it wrong for a woman in her 60's to have a baby? If the technology exists, why shouldn't she take advantage of it? For a healthy woman who is willing to take the medical risk of being pregnant at an advanced age, it may be her last chance to become a mother. Many people will object that it is unnatural for postmenopausal women to have babies, that it is a perverse use of a technology that has been widely accepted for younger women since 1978. To these critics, women in their 60's are simply too old to become good mothers. But all sorts of women who, by nearly anyone's standards, are extremely unlikely to be fit mothers can choose to have babies, including girls barely in their teens, drug abusers and the homeless. Some people also point out that an older mother is less likely than a young mother to live long enough to raise her children to adulthood. But any responsible mother, young or old, should make provisions for the care of her baby should she die before her child is grown. A postmenopausal woman who is willing to have a baby is especially likely to have done so. I suspect that much of the distaste for older women having babies is age and sex discrimination masquerading as high-flown ethical concern. Many of us feel uncomfortable when old people behave in unexpected ways, like deciding to have babies. Our expectations are more restrictive for older women than for older men. We are more likely to react to older men becoming fathers with amused tolerance rather than disapproval. One thing is clear: Women in their 50's and 60's who are willing to undergo the rigors of pregnancy, childbirth and child-rearing must really want to be mothers. Their children will be greatly cherished in a world where many children are not and where many young women have babies with scarcely a thought. If an older woman still wants to become pregnant after the risks are explained to her, I see no good reason not to help her.
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