Getting Pregnant After Age 35

Many women assume that, as long as they have regular periods and are healthy, they can easily conceive a child. What many don't realize is that your ability to get pregnant begins to decline after the age of 30. Once you hit 35, the wane in your fertility starts to gain momentum, decreasing your chances of a natural pregnancy. Unfortunately, getting pregnant after age 40 can prove to be especially challenging as your fertility continues to drop dramatically.

Unlike men, who continually make new sperm and therefore do not display such a marked deterioration in their fertility, women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. As a result, the older you get, the older your eggs get and with this older age comes the decline in the quality of your eggs. Because a 35-year-old's eggs are not as healthy as a 25-year-old's, older women are more likely to experience difficulties in getting pregnant. Their children are also at an increased risk of developing genetic defects, such as Down Syndrome.

So how can you tell whether your eggs are healthy or not? Having a proper fertility assessment, complete with ovarian reserve testing, can give you an idea as to the condition of your eggs. If your eggs are shown to not be suitable for common fertility treatments, like IVF, then you may want to consider egg donation. Using a donor egg can help increase the chances of a pregnancy occurring while decreasing the risk of genetic defects.

If your fertility assessment shows your eggs to still be in fairly good health, you may wonder about how to get pregnant through IVF using your own eggs. As long as your eggs are shown to be healthy, this is entirely possible. However, you may want to ask your fertility specialist at the Huntington Reproductive Center about performing preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This procedure allows your specialist to ensure that any embryos that are implanted into your womb are healthy.

To learn more about ovarian reserve testing, egg donation or PGD, fill out the form below and have a representative from Huntington Reproductive Center contact you.