Having babies after 40 isn’t anything new

Despite all the news about older women having in vitro fertilization treatment, even after menopause, having babies in the 40s and 50s is really not a new phenomenon. It may seem new because generations now don’t remember it – but it was very common before birth control was available.

According to this article, Egg Donation On The Rise As Alternative For Women In Their 40s And 50s Seeking Pregnancy, “The percentage of women having children after age 44 was higher in 1960
than it is now, because more women then continued to have children
until they hit menopause. Lacking convenient, reliable contraceptives,
they lacked today’s choices about when to have children. The birth
control pill became widely available in the early 1960s.”

If we think about it, many of us who were born in the 50s and 60s did know at least a few kids who were “oops” kids. They were the ones who had brothers or sisters much older than they were.

The gist of the article is more about older women having babies with assistance, but I thought the bit about older mothers before the Pill was available was an interesting tidbit.

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