Late to motherhood ... Nicole McInnes, 40, with her sons Angus, 13 months, and Max, 2 and a half years old. Photo: Jacky Ghossein
Older mothers are driving an increase in the number of premature babies, reports Rachel Browne.
For older mothers wanting to have a second or third baby, it is a difficult decision. Do they try to get pregnant again as quickly as possible to beat the biological clock? Or do they give their bodies a rest, but run the risk of not conceiving again at all?
Women might be increasingly inclined to do the former, Dominic Fitzgerald, clinical professor of paediatrics and child health at the Children's Hospital at Westmead said, even if that meant they were more likely to deliver a premature baby.
A period of less than six to nine months between the birth of one baby and the start of a new pregnancy heightened the chance of a pre-term delivery, Dr Fitzgerald said.
''There are many women who wait until their late 30s to start their family and then they find they want to have subsequent children,'' he said. ''There is an urgency to get on with it because the biological clock is ticking, so they have no alternative but to have their children quite close together.''
But waiting too long may be a gamble - hence the timing dilemma.
''The higher the maternal age, the greater the risk of pre-term delivery, so age in and of itself is a risk factor,'' Dr Fitzgerald said.
Older mothers are driving an increase in the number of premature births in NSW as most of the other risk factors associated with prematurity have remained static, Dr Fitzgerald said.
According to the most recent data from the NSW Mothers and Babies Report, premature arrivals have grown from 7.1 per cent of all births to 7.4 per cent between 2002 and 2006.
Nationally, about 45,000 babies are born prematurely each year.
Genea (formerly Sydney IVF) medical director Mark Bowman is familiar with the conundrum older mothers face when they want to have a second child, and feel ''time pressure'' to do it quickly.
But Dr Bowman said as long as a woman was being medically monitored and was healthy and well, there was no reason she could not try and conceive again six to eight months after the first birth.
''We know that female age is the single most important factor [in female infertility] and that there is a huge drop in egg count between age 38 and 42,'' Dr Bowman said.
Aside from the pressure older mothers may feel to have their babies in quick succession, there are other factors predisposing them to premature births. They have a higher likelihood of having multiple births, whether naturally occurring or as a result of IVF treatment. And pregnant women aged over 40 are at higher risk of pre-eclampsia, in which the woman's blood pressure becomes dangerously high. Many women are unaware of the causes of premature birth, Parool Shah, co-founder of Life's Little Treasures, a support group for parents of pre-term babies, said.
''There is a lack of information and awareness out there, so women are often taken by surprise when it happens to them,'' she said.
