Delayed pregnancies hit maternity services

Monday December 19th, 2011

Britain is now producing little more than one baby for every woman who reaches her 30th birthday, according to new figures.

The figures represent a reduction in the birth-rate of younger women of about 11 per cent in just 15 years.

The figures suggest that families are getting smaller and parents older in the UK.

The Office for National Statistics compared women born in 1938 with those born in 1965 and in 1980.

Assuming women born in 1965 completed their families by the age of 45, their average family size was 1.91. And 20 per cent did not have children.

This compared with 2.39 for their mothers' generation - women who were born in 1938 and who are now in their early 70s. Just nine per cent of these women did not have children.

But compared with the latest generation of mothers, women in their 40s had families earlier - achieving an average of 1.18 children by the age of 30. Those born in 1980 had given birth to just 1.03 on average by the time they reached 30 last year, the ONS said.

Louise Silverton, of the Royal College of Midwives, said the figures showed that many women are delaying having children until their 30s or even early 40s, posing new problems for maternity services.

She said: "This ageing of mothers means greater demands on maternity services as pregnancies to older women can give rise to complications and a need for (medical) interventions, which demands more of midwives and others in the maternity team.

"As the number of births is now at a historic high, this, together with the increasing social complexity of care needs for all mothers, has a multiplying effect on the workload heaped on already overstretched midwives."

Tags: Childbirth and Pregnancy | Nursing & Midwifery | UK News | Women’s Health & Gynaecology

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