Pregnancy Signs & Symptoms, Week by Week Pregnancy Guide

Women have various reasons for thinking about getting pregnant at 40. It is possible that they have been concentrating on their career, they simply didn’t find the right partner or they have been trying but they didn’t succeed until that moment.

Just don’t forget that nowadays there are a lot of older women who conceive.

What are the chances of being 40 and getting pregnant?

It all depends on your age. If you are 40 you have 40% chances of getting pregnant. On the other hand, if you are 45, the chances drop to 5%. After the age of 45, the chances of women getting pregnant naturally decrease considerably. About 15 years before menopause, the number of the eggs decreases.

Still you should know that being 40 and getting pregnant doesn’t depend only on the number of the eggs; their quality also counts.

In your 40s, the eggs released by your ovaries are a lot more likely to have structural abnormalities, like chromosomal abnormalities.

This being said about getting pregnant at 40, you should know that in this case the chances of having a miscarriage increase considerably and the baby could also have birth defects.

This is why these complications are common in case of older women.

Fertility treatment

Being 40 and getting pregnant has never been easier since nowadays there are many different kinds of treatments available.

These treatments, including ICSI and IVF, get better and better every year. At the age of 40, the chances of these treatments to be effective are of about 10%, but they could also reach 20%.

By the age of 43, the chances of getting pregnant at 40 drop to 1%-5%. From that moment on your chances of getting pregnant with your own eggs are minimal. This is why there are a lot of women thinking about using donor eggs. This way they can increase their chances of getting pregnant.

It is known that about half of the mothers after the age of 40 got pregnant using donor eggs. The risk of chromosomal problems and the risks or miscarriage vary according to the age of the donor of the egg.

Pros of getting pregnant at 40

Maybe the best thing about getting pregnant at this age is that women are emotionally ready for a child and they also have financial stability. By this time, they had the opportunity to see the world and they are settled financially and most probably they have a permanent partner.

When thinking about being 40 and getting pregnant, women also consider that they know their partner well at this moment and this could be a solid foundation for their family life. Since women have more experience, they will be able to make better decisions when it comes to their child.

As you can see, there is nothing wrong about getting pregnant at 40 and there are more and more women deciding to get pregnant and raise a family at such an age.