The damaging lie about having a baby in your forties

BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Rachel Burden has spoken about how she believes having a baby aged 41 was a ‘really selfish thing to do’ – but was it?

I always had an image of how I would celebrate my 40th birthday: surrounded by friends, in some Jane Austen-esque country pile, doing some of my finest karaoke renditions in front of a loving audience. The reality was that I was at home, four weeks away from giving birth – and we still hadn’t bought a car seat or a babygrow.

Turning 40 and having a baby was a monumental moment in my life. It felt like the greatest transition and gift, albeit one that was utterly exhausting, unrelenting and one you definitely can’t return.

There is a lot of criticism doled out to older parents for being selfish – not to mention the pressure that we put on ourselves – but I genuinely believe that your forties are the best time to have a baby. Yes, there are increased health risks, but there is also a staggering awareness about those risks. I did everything I could to be across all aspects of my pregnancy to ensure that it went as smoothly as possible – and I was lucky, it did. Childbirth is dangerous for women – whatever your age.

I feel great sympathy for BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Rachel Burden, who said in a recent interview that she thinks it was a “really selfish thing to do”, having given birth to her fourth child at the age of 41 and experiencing complications. I hate the thought of another woman feeling any sense of guilt or shame.

If having a baby later in life has taught me anything, it’s that these things can happen to any of us. In fact, speaking anecdotally, my obstetrician told me I was healthier than most expectant mothers she saw in their twenties and thirties – and pointed out that older mothers tend to approach their pregnancy in a far more cautious and health-focused manner.

People like Rachel (and myself) are part of a much wider demographic trend. The fertility rate for women aged 40 and over has nearly trebled since 1981. According to data from a report published in 2015, women aged 40 and over now have a higher fertility rate than women aged under 20. The older group had the largest percentage increase in fertility rates in 2015 at 3.4 per cent, while the younger group had a drop of 7.1 per cent – the largest reduction of any group.

None of this should be particularly surprising, as birth rates in the UK continue to fall overall. ONS figures showed that “total fertility” (based on the birth rate across different age groups) fell to 1.49 children per woman in 2022. In total, there were 605,479 live births in 2022, down 3.1 per cent from a year earlier – the lowest number since 2002.

I can’t help but think that this is partly because of education, but also because of the state of Britain today: you don’t need me to tell you that having a child is very expensive. In our post-pandemic world, we’re dealing with a cost of living crisis and savage cuts to public services – including the NHS – coupled with staggering childcare costs. Add those unsavoury elements together and it’s no surprise to me that fewer young people are deciding to have kids – or, like me, are delaying having them until they are more financially stable (something that I’m told comes with age, but that’s another story...)

The brutal truth is you can’t always choose when you have a baby, or indeed if you will manage to conceive at all. We’re told many lies about pregnancy and birth. Women are subject to societal expectations and unrealistic pressure. The journey to parenthood (or not) is incredibly unique for all of us. My reality was that having a baby later in life was my only choice, for a plethora of complicated and very personal reasons.

And I can now tell you, hand on heart (and health concerns aside) that being an older parent is brilliant. I am so much more patient than my more impulsive, younger self. I can take the time to really focus on my son and not sweat the small stuff.

When he’s losing his mind and throwing a monumental tantrum, I tend not to react in a way that I might have some years ago. I have none of the sense of Fomo (fear of missing out) that I would’ve felt when younger – I don’t need to see another sunrise after being out all night with my friends, I am much happier seeing the sunrise after a full(ish) night of sleep.

By the age of 40, I’d had so many joyous experiences – and also experienced some life-shifting difficult times, too. But this only means that I have a huge reserve of life in me to draw on when guiding, helping and supporting my child as he finds his way in the world.

As a parent, you need to have a deep capacity to be there for your child – and it’s because of my wealth of life experience that I have this in abundance, in a way that simply wouldn’t have been possible when I was younger.

I wholeheartedly believe that none of what I describe is “selfish”. Yes, I am an older mother, but my son has much more of “me” given to him. I am in the best decade of my life. I am the happiest, strongest and most complete version of myself – and because I’ll have a pre-teen to be running around after when I turn 50, I had better be the fittest version, too. I’m making sure I’m as strong and healthy as possible to be there for him as he grows up.

So while I may not have busted out my karaoke favourites for my 40th, I’ll have to save that for my 50th– and this way, my son can be treated to my very heartfelt rendition of the Jon Bon Jovi classic “Blaze of Glory”, too. Believe me, that’s something no one wants to miss.