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Late motherhood is a phenomenon that is becoming more and more common in today's society. In comparison with previous years, when women usually had their first child at 30 years old, today most common are close to age 50 when they decide to have the first baby.
But, unfortunately, the biological clock is ticking for all women at this point, and age is a decisive factor for women to become mothers. From the age of 35-37, the egg count diminishes dramatically and so the chances of getting pregnant.
Women who consider pregnancy over 40 or even 50 are likely to need to a fertility treatment to have a baby, and using donor eggs may be required in almost all cases.
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Best age to have a baby biologically
To get pregnant naturally, both the man and the woman must be fertile. As regards the female partner, she must meet two fundamental criteria un order to give birth to a healthy child:
- Good ovarian reserve (egg count) and egg quality
- Uterus (womb) able to give rise and maintain a pregnancy until childbirth
Unfortunately, the ovaries get old as women age. And what's more, this decrease in fertility occurs more rapidly from age 37.
Delaying motherhood increases the risk for the eggs remaining in your egg supply to have chromosomal abnormalities, which increases the miscarriage and implantation failure rates, as well as the chances for the child to be born with alterations such as the Down syndrome.
Women over 40 should keep in mind that the quality of their eggs is inevitably lower than when they were younger, let alone at ages 45 and 50, when the chances of falling pregnant naturally are almost non-existent.
Read more: How Many Eggs Does a Woman Have? – Your Egg Count by Age.
Options to have a baby over 50
Despite what was mentioned in the previous section, a woman could become a mother at the age of 50 with the help of assisted reproductive treatments, as long as she is in good health to carry the pregnancy.
However, nowadays, women around the age of 50 who go to an assisted reproduction center in Spain may face certain restrictions when seeking treatment.
Although Law 14/2006 on Assisted Human Reproduction Techniques does not specify a maximum age for undergoing fertility treatment, the reality is that most clinics do not accept women over the age of 49.
In general, this is the age limit for undergoing assisted reproduction treatment that professionals in the field in Spain have agreed upon, taking into account the difficulty of achieving pregnancy at that age and, above all, the potential risks for both the mother and the baby.
Even so, there are some more flexible clinics that have decided to extend the age limit to 52, in order to give women over 50 the opportunity to pursue motherhood, as long as they are in good health and a potential pregnancy does not pose risks to either the mother or the baby.
It is worth noting that Spain’s public healthcare system (Seguridad Social) only provides fertility treatments for women up to the age of 40, although the criteria may vary slightly between Autonomous Communities.
Next, we will discuss which assisted reproduction treatments and techniques would be suitable for achieving pregnancy at the age of 50.
Fertility preservation
As explained above, egg quality can be seriously compromised when a woman reaches the age of 50.
For this reason, women who are planning to become mothers at an advanced maternal age should consider retaining their fertility, that is, cryopreserving their oocytes when they are younger.
Egg vitrification is the technique for the cryopreservation of eggs today. The survival rates are now higher than ever thanks to the latest improvements made in fertility preservation programs offered by fertility clinics nowadays.
If you decide to freeze your eggs when you are 30 or younger, their quality will be as high as it was at that point when you decide to thaw them later in life, thereby increasing your chances of getting pregnant at 50.
Fertility preservation is the most adequate option for women who wish to have biological children at 50 years old.
IVF with PGD
Women who reach an advanced age and decide to become mothers at that point without having cryopreserved their eggs can give IVF with ovarian stimulation a try. In this case, you will receive fertility drugs to induce ovulation and produce multiple eggs.
But, unfortunately, when a woman is 40 years old or older, the response of the ovaries to medications is typically poor, and subsequently the number of eggs retrieved is low, and so their quality. Read: Poor Responders in IVF Cycles – Management & Best Protocols.
The good news is that some women still have their AMH (anti-Müllerian hormone) levels within the boundaries of what's considered adequate for IVF. These women give IVF a try in order to have a biological before moving on to donor eggs as their last resort.
Anti-Müllerian hormone is a parameter used to evaluate the ovarian reserve in women. Check this out to read more: What Can Ovarian Reserve & AMH Tests Tell Us? – Results Explained.
In these cases, it is advisable to do IVF with Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) to examine the embryos genetically before they are transferred back to the uterus. The goal is not to transfer those carrying genetic abnormalities or diseases.
Due to age, chances are that most embryos are qualified as not viable. This is precisely the reason with PGD is so important in these cases—it prevents pregnancies that may result in miscarriage or an unhealthy baby.
Egg donation
Without a doubt, IVF with egg donation is the most suitable treatment for women who decide to become mothers at the age of 50, especially if they have not preserved (vitrified) their own eggs beforehand and are in good health to carry a pregnancy without risks.
Egg donors are young, healthy women who donate their eggs altruistically and voluntarily. The donors’ eggs are of very high quality, making this treatment the one that offers the highest success rates for women wishing to become mothers at 50. However, it does mean that the woman must give up passing on her own genetic material to her baby.
On the other hand, it is important to mention that another possible option would be embryo adoption, especially if the use of donor sperm is also necessary.
It is essential to highlight that, in any case, before attempting a pregnancy, a doctor should assess whether the woman is fit to carry a pregnancy without compromising her health.
This is the reason why the quality of donor eggs is optimal, which translates into high success rates for IVF with donor eggs.
IVF with donor eggs is probably the most confusing of all fertility treatments, and oftentimes, a misleading one. Transparency is one of our strict selection criteria when it comes to recommending fertility clinics to our readers. You can create your Fertility Report now to filter clinics based on our selection criteria and get an individual report based on your preferences with answers to your queries and most importantly, to prevent potential frauds.
Risks of having a baby at 50
As seen throughout this post, getting pregnant in your 50s is not an easy task due to the number of natural barriers that you may encounter in your journey.
Aside from this, one should add all the risks for the mother and the baby that getting pregnant at an advance age implies, including:
- Gestational diabetes
- Preeclampsia
- Miscarriage
- Cerebrovascular accident
- Heart problems
- Preterm birth
- Perinatal mortality
- Low birth weight
- Birth complications
- Giving birth by C-section
For all these reasons, it is crucial that both the woman and her partner, if any, consider all the influential factors and risks involved in getting pregnant at the age of 50.
FAQs from users
Is IVF or Ovodonation better for women in their 50s?
Ovodonation. After the age of 45, pregnancies with own oocytes are anecdotal. Even in natural populations that do not use contraceptive methods and have very large families, women stop having offspring after the age of 44. In assisted reproduction treatments few oocytes are obtained and of low quality resulting in embryos with little or no implantation potential.
Therefore, if a patient wishes to become a mother at the age of 50, she should opt for a treatment with donated oocytes or embryos.
What requirements must a woman in her late 50s meet to be accepted for fertility treatment and become pregnant?
There is a consensus among the Spanish Fertility Society and experts in Reproductive Medicine in our country to set an age limit of 50 years to start an Assisted Reproduction treatment.
In order to be able to treat a woman of this age, she must be in optimal health, without any pathology that could complicate gestation.
To what extent is the application of PGD important in women who decide to become mothers at an advanced age?
From a reproductive point of view, if we take as advanced maternal age women seeking pregnancy from 40-41 years of age, the clinical data are clear and reveal that the eggs of these women present an increased risk of chromosomal alterations, especially trisomies such as chromosome 21 or Down's Syndrome.
Clinical data from the main medical groups that apply PGD show that its use for this group of women favors the gestation rate and decreases the miscarriage rate.
Is it possible to achieve a pregnancy with in vitro fertilization at age 50?
Yes, it would be possible to achieve a pregnancy at the age of 50 with the help of assisted reproductive techniques, specifically IVF with donor eggs. Performing IVF with a woman's own eggs would be really complicated, since the quantity and quality of the woman's eggs when she reaches the age of 50 are already very compromised.
On the other hand, it is important to mention that there is a consensus that Spanish assisted reproduction clinics do not usually perform treatments after the age of 49-50, due to the risks that this may entail for both the mother and the baby.
Is it possible to become a mother at 50 naturally?
Although, in principle, a woman could become pregnant until the end of her reproductive stage (with the arrival of menopause), the truth is that as a woman's age advances, the possibility of becoming a mother in a natural way becomes more and more difficult.
The reason is that the ovarian reserve (the number of eggs that still remain in the ovaries) is depleted and the quality of the eggs also decreases with time.
When a woman is 50 years old and is close to menopause (if this stage has not yet arrived) both aspects (quantity and quality of the eggs) are already very affected and achieving a natural pregnancy that reaches term would be really complicated. On the other hand, if menopause has already arrived, there would be no possibility of a natural pregnancy.
Is it possible to be a new mother at 50?
It is possible to become a first-time mother at the age of 50, especially with the help of assisted reproduction techniques such as egg donation, and as long as the woman is in good health. Natural pregnancy at 50 is extremely difficult, as menopause is approaching (if the woman has not already reached it).
How is a woman's fertility at age 50?
To answer this question, it is important to know the term ovarian reserve. This is a concept that is used to refer to the number of eggs available in a woman at a given time in her life. The ovarian reserve decreases over the years until it is exhausted when menopause is reached.
Normally, the cessation of ovarian activity or menopause occurs between the ages of 45 and 55. Therefore, female fertility at the age of 50 may be compromised, since the ovarian reserve will have diminished. In addition, it should be noted that egg quality also declines over time.
Suggested readings
Fertility preservation is the best option for those women who decide to delay motherhood. I recommend that you continue reading about this option here: Fertility Preservation – Cost & Options for Retaining Your Fertility.
We have made reference to Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) as an additional technique for obtaining embryos with implantation potential. To get more info about this treatment option, click here: What Is PGD or Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis?
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References
Anne Z Steiner, David Pritchard, Frank Z Stanczyk, James S Kesner, Juliana W Meadows, Amy H Herring, Donna D Baird. Association Between Biomarkers of Ovarian Reserve and Infertility Among Older Women of Reproductive Age. JAMA. 2017 Oct 10;318(14):1367-1376. doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.14588 (See)
Baris Ata, Ayse Seyhan, Emre Seli. Diminished ovarian reserve versus ovarian aging: overlaps and differences. Curr Opin Obstet Gynecol. 2019 Jun;31(3):139-147.
Gunilla Sydsjö, Malin Lindell Pettersson, Marie Bladh, Agneta Skoog Svanberg, Claudia Lampic, Elizabeth Nedstrand. Evaluation of risk factors' importance on adverse pregnancy and neonatal outcomes in women aged 40 years or older. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2019 Mar 13;19(1):92 (See)
Natalie M Crawford, Anne Z Steiner. Age-related infertility. Obstet Gynecol Clin North Am. 2015 Mar;42(1):15-25. doi: 10.1016/j.ogc.2014.09.005 (See)
Sauer M, Paulson R, Lobo R 1990 A preliminary report on oocyte donation extending reproductive potential to women over 40. New England Journal of Medicine 323, 1157–1160.
FAQs from users: 'Is IVF or Ovodonation better for women in their 50s?', 'What requirements must a woman in her late 50s meet to be accepted for fertility treatment and become pregnant?', 'How old is the oldest woman to conceive a child naturally?', 'To what extent is the application of PGD important in women who decide to become mothers at an advanced age?', 'Can you get pregnant while going through the menopause?', 'Is it possible to achieve a pregnancy with in vitro fertilization at age 50?', 'Is it possible to become a mother at 50 naturally?', 'What age is too late to have a baby?', 'Is it possible to be a new mother at 50?', 'Is it safe to have a baby at 40?', 'What age is best to get pregnant?' and 'How is a woman's fertility at age 50?'.
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