Pregnancy in Your 30's vs Your 20's

When is the Ideal Age to Conceive?

by April Caires

Ask most people in their 30s if they've changed at all since their 20s and the answer will be almost unanimously yes.

For would-be parents, the chasm between twenty-something and thirty-something is a significant one indeed. Increasingly, women and couples are waiting until later in life to start a family, and this brings both complications and advantages.

Simply put, delaying pregnancy until one's 30s--well past a woman's biological fertility peak, typically in her early 20s--means facing increased potential health risks for both mother and child, and decreased probability of getting pregnant, not to mention the added strain of simply being pregnant in a thirty-something body.

Yet more women and couples today are choosing to delay pregnancy than ever before. And what most are finding is that the wait was well worth it--starting a family post-30, though challenging, is more enriching than they could have ever imagined.

Jenny, 34, is the mother of 3-year-old Abby, and is currently pregnant with her second child. Both of her pregnancies have occurred in her 30s, and it's a difference she can feel. "Your body is just older," she says, "It doesn't snap back."

The fact is a woman's body looks, feels, and functions differently in her 30s than it did in her 20s, and this may impact both the success and the experience of a pregnancy.

Even pregnancy at 30 versus 34 feels different, says Jenny. "Your body aches more just because you're 34. Add 40 pounds to that, and it's going to ache even more."

For Jennifer, 34, and 5 months pregnant with her first child--it's not so much pregnancy as parenthood that may be more challenging in her mid-thirties.

"I don't know what the difference is for pregnancy itself," she says, but wonders, "Will I have enough energy to chase a two year old around?"

So why are so many choosing to put off parenthood until their 30s, when merely a generation ago most women viewed their 20s as the prime time to start a family?

According to Womenshealth.gov, the website of the National Women's Health Information Center, contributing factors include easy access to birth control, more women in the work force, and the trend toward marrying at an older age. In addition, many couples delay pregnancy until they feel financially secure enough to raise a child.

Jennifer was married at 31, and says she and her husband wanted to enjoy marriage itself for a time, before adding kids to the equation.

"When you've waited for a while, and you finally find the guy that you want to spend your life with," she says, "You're like, well, I'm not really ready for this to be three people yet." Jenny says choosing to delay pregnancy also gave her the freedom to pursue her career ambitions. "In my 20s, I was very career-oriented, very focused," says Jenny, a nurse at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. "I just wanted to achieve, achieve, achieve."

Now, more than a decade later, she says, "I feel like I'm really satisfied with my career. I had almost 12 years of my career, and I'm pretty happy with that. I achieved what I wanted to achieve."

Beyond laying the foundation for career fulfillment and a happy marriage, many women say delaying pregnancy till their 30s also meant the freedom to get to know themselves better, before taking on motherhood. "I can't even imagine having a baby in my 20s," says Melissa, mother of 11-month-old Samuel, her first child. "Could not even imagine."

Like many women today, she viewed her 20s as an invaluable time for reflection and personal growth. "I feel like I really took the time to figure some things out," she says, "and I'm very, very thankful for that."

Jenny agrees. "I know a lot more about who I am now than I ever did when I was 26, 28," she says. And as far as motherhood, she says, "I just don't think I was prepared at that time."

Yet, even while reaping the benefits of delaying pregnancy, these women say they still felt the pressure of the clock. "Scott and I got married when we were 30," says Melissa, "We ideally would have loved to have been married for 5 years before we started a family. But we felt that, because of our age, we had to start soon. We weren't going to risk having all kinds of infertility problems."

Infertility is one of the prime concerns facing couples in their 30s. According the National Institute of Health, fertility generally declines after 30. A woman under 30 having regular intercourse has about a 25-30% chance of getting pregnant each month. For a woman over 40, that chance diminishes to less than 10%. Yet infertility is just one obstacle. Added to this are health problems, which also increase as a woman enters her 30s and 40s, both for her and her unborn child.

According to the March of Dimes a woman over 35 has increased risk of miscarriage, C-section, and having a baby with a genetic disorder, such as Downs Syndrome, one of the most common genetic birth defects. At 25, a woman has a 1 in 1,250 chance of having a baby with Downs. At 35, the odds jump to 1 in 400, and at 40, the odds are 1 in 100, or a one percent chance of having a baby with this disorder.

Yet all three women say that health concerns were not foremost on their minds as they entered pregnancy. For Jenny, the statistical increases in risks were not significant enough to worry her just yet. "Even at 35," she says, the health risks would, "just increase slightly. It's really when you're 40 that you really are faced with some significant potential problems."

The facts are on her side. Even though pregnancy-related risks are greater for a woman in her 30s versus her 20s, many women can and do have healthy pregnancies at 30, 35, and beyond. In fact, the March of Dimes says that healthy women usually have healthy pregnancies, even at age 35 or into their 40s. And when problems do arise, they are usually successfully treated.

Even with the risks factored in, a woman is much more likely to have a healthy pregnancy than an unhealthy one, especially if she is already living a healthy, active lifestyle. Experts agree that habits like exercising, not smoking, and eating a balanced die, along with good prenatal care, are vital to a healthy pregnancy at any age.

Being pregnant in your 30s, while perhaps harder on the body, may be easier on the soul. For these women, waiting until their 30s was well worth it, and pregnancy is an experience they wouldn't trade.

"I wanted to see what it felt like as a woman, to birth something, because we are the only people that get to feel that," says Jenny. "As hard as it is, I really love it."