I recently watched an episode of Live with Kelly and Michael, on this particular day Halle Berry was a guest on the show. After discussing some of her work they went on to discuss her pregnancies, Halle Berry’s first pregnancy was at age 40 and her second was at age 47, her newest sweet pea is 9 months. As they discussed her pregnancy she stated that “geriatric pregnancy” was placed on her chart in the hospital, this is the first time I had ever heard this and of course I was appalled because I had both my babies after 35 (38 & 40). How ridiculous that something like that would be placed in a Mothers chart!!
This is probably one of the main reasons I switched from having an ob/gyn to midwifes. I remember the ob/gyn saying similar things about “advanced” maternal age. My theory is as long as you have eggs you can have a baby just as men came have babies as long as they have sperm, which is pretty much their entire lives…lol….if I had to give a percentage I would say 99.9% of the women I know that have had babies after 35 have had successful, safe, beautiful pregnancies including myself.
The medical establishment really needs to check themselves on this, if they can put this type of wording in one of the highest paid, most beautiful mothers in the world chart, just think of what they do to the mothers that have little support or really believe that their babies will be born less than healthy because of their age. I’m really passionate about this topic so I’ll probably be back to write more later but for now here’s a link to some of the common myth busters about babies after 35 and kudos to Halle for being a badass and doing her thing at 47!!!
http://blog.oncofertility.northwestern.edu/2010/08/mythbusters-in-oncofertility-geriatric-pregnancy/