08 Oct Can you become a mother once you turn 40?
By Reproclinic Editorial Committee
Delayed motherhood is an increasingly common occurrence nowadays. The search for stability, both at work and in the home, the absence of a stable partner and economic factors, mean that many women and couples delay seeking pregnancy.
Unfortunately, we are often not aware that delaying the age at which we seek pregnancy makes it more difficult to achieve it naturally. In fact, although women may feel at the peak of their lives as they get older, the quality and quantity of their eggs deteriorate.
In this sense, scientific studies indicate that, after a certain age, achieving pregnancy naturally is more complicated as the quality of the eggs worsens and the chromosomal changes in the embryos increase exponentially, increasing “non-pregnancy”, miscarriage or the possibility of the baby being a carrier of some chromosomal syndrome.
Fortunately, when this happens, assisted reproduction is a great ally on the road to motherhood.
Today, thanks to the techniques of vitrification of eggs, women can decide when to become mothers with the best guarantees of quality, thanks to the preservation of fertility. The vitrification of the eggs consists of freezing them using a technique called vitrification. This technique consists of subjecting the egg to very low temperatures at a very high speed, avoiding the formation of ice crystals and cellular damage. In this way, it is possible to maintain all its quality and stop the biological clock, so that the woman can take control and decide the best time to become a mother, without the pressure of losing the best reproductive years.
There are treatments such as In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), in which the eggs and sperm with the best morphology are fertilized in our laboratories, to be later transferred inside the woman’s uterus when the embryo is formed.
Unfortunately, there may also be cases in which the quality of the eggs and the sperm is very low, and the couple have to resort to both gametes from a donor. In this case, the most adequate technique would be the In Vitro Fertilization with egg donation or sperm donation, which significantly increases the effectiveness of the treatment.
In Vitro Fertilization with donor sperm is the technique required for women who decide to become mothers without a partner (mum by choice) or women’s partners.
Can age lead to possible complications?
Delaying motherhood can involve a series of difficulties. As the quality of the egg decreases, chromosome errors increase during development, producing embryos with chromosome alterations (with more or fewer chromosomes).
The majority of these embryos will not be able to achieve a pregnancy and we will find ourselves with the dreaded negative pregnancy test, but on other occasions they give rise to first trimester miscarriages and in a smaller percentage to babies with a chromosomal syndrome such as Patau’s Syndrome. In this sense, there are techniques such as Preimplantation Genetic Screening, also known by its acronym in English PGT, which allow us to study the number of chromosomes in the embryos by detecting numerical alterations in the chromosomes in the embryos analyzed. In this way, the aim is to transfer the embryos with the correct chromosome endowment of higher quality to the future mother, increasing the chances of pregnancy and reducing the chances of miscarriage.
At Reproclinic, each patient and treatment are unique
At Reproclinic, every patient is unique. Each patient and each partner require a complete study. We care for and treat fertility in a personalized way from the moment our patients enter the clinic with a very clear objective: to achieve the long-awaited “positive” result.
For us, the personalization of the treatments is essential in our activity. We carry out a detailed study of each patient and administer, in this way, the correct dose of medication needed together with the most suitable treatment.
We are aware of the need for physical and mental balance in order to achieve pregnancy, which is why we have a team of expert psychologists, nutritionists, acupuncturists and reflexologists who can help you in all the aspects you may need. We want to accompany you on this journey, because together we will achieve it.
