Natural Infertility Treatment
Getting Pregnant After 40: The Facts
For many women, getting pregnant after 40 may seem like it can be all too hard. Since the body’s reproductive system slows down as you age, many feel that getting pregnant after a
certain age is out of the question. However, this may not always be the case and you should consider many factors before coming to that conclusion.
One of the main reasons that women who are older have trouble getting pregnant has to do with the way your body is designed to function as a female.
Women are born with over a million eggs; however, they begin losing these eggs very rapidly as they start to grow. In fact, by the time a female reaches puberty they only have 300,000 eggs left. Of these, only about 300 will ever enter into the ovulation process.
The number of eggs continues to decline the older you get. In addition, as you age the hormones that cause eggs to ovulate become less effective as well. This decline occurs no matter what your health is like, although those with poorer health or who smoke will decline at a faster rate.
With these changes in a woman’s body, it can become more difficult for a woman over 40 to become pregnant or at least it may take a longer period for them to do so.
Normal aging can lower a normal woman’s chances of becoming pregnant to less than 8% and it can increase the possibility that they will become infertile to 29%. In addition, many women who do become pregnant may have serious complications with the pregnancy. Some may even miscarry the child.
The good news is that getting pregnant after 40 is possible. In fact, many women have no trouble becoming pregnant at this age and give birth to a healthy child.
For some of us, a bit of help through one of the many types of procedures that are designed to increase your fertility rate, is often necessary. Natural fertility methods, such as Lisa Olson’s Pregnancy Miracle, have had great success helping older women conceive.
Whether or not a woman over 40 can get pregnant is dependent on many elements. While much has to do with your genetic make-up, your diet, the amount of exercise you get and your lifestyle can play a role as well.
For many women, changing to a healthy diet, eliminating smoking, increasing your physical exercise and limiting stress in your daily life can have a positive influence on your ability to have a baby.
In many cases, it just requires making some simple lifestyle changes, having a lot of patience and working just that bit harder to let nature do its work!
| This entry was posted by Kate on December 3, 2011 at 7:14 pm, and is filed under Kate's Blog. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
about 1 week ago
I found your blog to be very interesting. I was under the impression that the older you were the less likely that the baby or the mommy would remain healthy after the birth. Is that not a true statement anymore? Women used to think there were to many risks involved after 30 to get pregnant, me being one of them. Are we saying that is not the case anymore?
about 1 week ago
Thanks for your comment Shiela, I don’t think we’re necessarily saying that there still aren’t risks associated with getting pregnant at age 40 or over, but more that it is possible if you look for ways to improve your overall health and well being, and “anti-age” your body, if you will.
Pregnancy affects women so differently and I know of friends who are aged 40 who have had terrible pregnancy experiences, and others under the age of 40 who have also suffered not-so-good experiences. Some women just have a better ability to carry a child in their womb, others aren’t as lucky…but I think my point is more that age can be completely irrelevant in some cases, as so many other lifestyle factors can influence your pregnancy experience, positive or negative. It also lends high hope to other women when hearing stories of successful pregnancies for women in their forties, but you can’t bank on just expecting it’s going to happen without some degree of difficulty or concern.
We all know that our eggs decline with age, just like a man’s sperm does, but I think with the help of vitamin supplements and more holistic approaches to diet and exercise that even women in their forties can successfully have healthy children and that age really in some cases, cannot be considered a barrier.
Kate