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Older is Better in this Pregnancy Case

After 35 we label pregnancy as higher risk because of advance maternal age, but other pregnancy risk factors increase as well. Whether it’s fear of the risks of pregnancy as we get older, just pursuing what we want, or just plain being more ready to fill out the family, it’s been known for awhile that women over the age of 30 more likely to space their babies very close together. Birth spacing studies have not been very helpful to guiding our typical US patient, as many have been done in third world countries that have many more pregnancies per woman and a host of other risk factors that make the birth spacing literature harder to interpret. But in general, it’s thought to increase risks if you space your children closer than a conception 6 months after the last birth. But here’s some interesting new data from a Dutch study reported this mont: older moms actually tolerate this better than younger moms! And women over the age of 34 who conceive in less than 6 months after their prior birth actually have less likelihood to have this pregnancy result in a preterm birth than a younger mom. Why this is, is not clear. Definitely a quicker pregnancy helps with fertility as women do run out of eggs at some point, but just being fertile cannot explain exactly why a woman would be at less risk for preterm birth.

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