Pregnancy after 40
In the list of oft-cited reasons why women over 40 shouldn't have babies, you won't find postpartum depression (PPD) among them. "There is absolutely no conclusive evidence that increased age in women is a risk factor for postpartum depression," asserts Ariel Dalfen, a psychiatrist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital and the author of When Baby Brings the Blues: Solutions for Postpartum Depression.
Women who choose to wait to have their children may, in fact, have some psychosocial advantages that buffer them from the depression that accompanies as many as 20 per cent of all pregnancies.
According to Dalfen, age has nothing to do with the greatest risks for PPD: a history of anxiety or depression, a lack of social supports and financial instability. "In some ways, older women are often more prepared for parenthood, as they've had a chance to fully develop their personalities, social networks and coping skills, and they tend to ask for help when they need it," says Dalfen.
Interestingly, the pattern of PPD that Dalfen most commonly observes in midlife women is an issue of personality rather than age. "I see more pronounced problems with older women who are strong perfectionists and have rigid ideas about how things should be done."
Another combination of risk factors more likely to affect older women is the stress and cost related to such assisted reproductive technologies as IVF, which are increasingly relied upon as fertility wanes. But overall, Dalfen is optimistic about the postpartum scenario for women our age.
And if you're not...
On this, the year that legalized contraception becomes the same age as a More reader, my face looks as it did in the delivery room when my husband told me my epidural had run out.
What's got my fallopians in a knot? After 40 years, the male pill is still at least five years away. Empowering men to take control of their own reproduction notwithstanding, it's about time some of the personal, financial and physiological contraceptive burden be shared. After all, if a man can take Viagra regularly, he can take an oral contraceptive.
Babies and midlife: What to do when you can't get pregnant, what to do when you don't want to be pregnant, and one woman's story of getting pregnant after 40.
This article originally appeared in the September 2009 issue of More
