Pregnancy After 35: For Kids With Older Moms, Social And Environmental Factors Outweigh Biological Ones

Miscarriage, stillbirth, diabetes, chromosomal abnormalities. This list of conditions would be terrifying for any mother, but it’s a list that has become very familiar to any woman who has conceived — or thought about conceiving — after the age of 35. Being an older mom has long been associated with a higher risk of adverse conditions in the baby and complications with the birth itself. The average age of mothers during their first pregnancy, however, has steadily risen — in 1970, that age was 21.4, and in 2014, it rose to 26.3. Are there any benefits to this steady climb, or are more women simply putting themselves and their babies at risk?

Despite research detailing the various biological effects older mothers tend to experience, anew study has found that children of older mothers have some advantages as well. Children of older mothers are healthier, taller, and better educated than the children of younger mothers, according to a new study published in Population and Development Review. Previous research has ignored macro-level environmental changes, the authors wrote, pointing out that both public health and social conditions have improved over time in many countries.

For any individual parent, delaying pregnancy means a child with a later birth year. A 10-year delay in childbearing, then, would be accompanied by a decade of social and environmental changes as well. These changes include an increase in access to higher education, improvement in medical technologies, and better approaches to public health. The study shows that despite the risks associated with childbearing at older ages, women who delay their pregnancies have healthier, taller, and better-educated children. The risks are counterbalanced, or even outweighed, by these changes that occur during the time a woman delays bearing a child.

Mikko Myrskyla, director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, and colleague Kieron Barclay at the London School of Economics, examined data from over 1.5 million Swedish men and women born between 1960 and 1991. They looked at the relationship between maternal age at time of birth and characteristics, including height, grades, and physical fitness. Height and physical fitness can be a good representation of overall health, while educational achievement is a determinant for overall occupational and lifetime achievements.

The team found that even when mothers delayed childbearing until age 40 and older, children were taller, better educated, and more physically fit. One important facet of the study was that the researchers compared siblings born to the same mother and father decades apart, allowing them to better isolate maternal age as a factor — siblings already share 50 percent of their DNA, and grow up in the same household environment.

“By comparing siblings who grew up in the same family it was possible for us to pinpoint the importance of maternal age at the time of birth,” said Barclay.

Myrskyla added: “The benefits associated with being born in a later year outweigh the individual risk factors arising from being born to an older mother. We need to develop a different perspective on advanced maternal age. Expectant parents are typically well aware of the risks associated with late pregnancy, but they are less aware of the positive effects.”

Source: Barclay K, Mryskyla M. Advanced Maternal Age and Offspring Outcomes: Reproductive Aging and Counterbalancing Period Trends. Population Development and Review. 2016.

Doctors Announce Zero Tolerance Policy For Drinking Alcohol During Pregnancy, As No Amount Is Safe

To drink or not to drink while pregnant? That has been the question for decades. Health experts have reverberated between siding with a no-tolerance alcohol policy and another more lenient approach to drinking while gestating. Finally, a leading group of U.S. pediatricians from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have released a report that clearly warns mothers: No amount of alcohol is safe while pregnant.
"The only guarantee of having no effects from alcohol is no prenatal alcohol exposure," said the report’s co-author Dr. Janet Williams, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, in a press release. Williams added that future research will continue to show, “alcohol has subtle yet important lasting effects on academic performance, attention, behavior, cognition, memory, language skills, and visual and motor development."
According to the report published in the journal Pediatrics, “there is no safe trimester to drink alcohol,” and “no amount of alcohol intake should be considered safe.” Consequences of drinking any amount of alcohol at any point in the pregnancy can cause thinking and behavioral problems that last a lifetime, the authors wrote in the report. They argue, if there’s a slight chance of alcohol harming a developing baby, why would a mother justify taking the risk?
Williams says that regardless what the medical field has to say about drinking alcohol while pregnant, there will be still be some women who will, "continue to rationalize that their own alcohol use during pregnancy is sufficiently low or infrequent to be safe."
In 2013, a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed more than half of New York women had one or more alcoholic beverages during the last 30 days. More than 18 percent of those women reported binge drinking, which means they had four or more drinks in one sitting. Using medical records, the CDC estimates up to 1.5 infants out of every 1,000 live births are born with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in America. Those children are consequently born with dozens of different abnormal characteristics and behaviors from hyperactive disorders to poor coordination and speech delays. The CDC has stood by the zero tolerance policy for alcohol during pregnancy, but it wasn’t until the AAP officially announced their position that a clear consensus could be made for women who may still be confused on recommendations.
Pregnant women were surveyed on their alcohol consumption, which revealed prevalence throughout the country. Photo courtesy of the CDC

A History of Drinking for Two:

During the 19th century, doctors gave their pregnant patients permission to consume alcohol throughout their trimesters. In fact, they encouraged it. Experiencing morning sickness? Doctors prescribed champagne as a treatment and brandy with soda as an appetite stimulant. By the 20th century, alcohol was used as a remedy to quell nerves as they went into labor because doctors thought it would relax the uterus and even slow premature labors.
“Alcohol, as such, is not injurious and need not be eliminated during pregnancy,” an obstetrics textbook published in 1953 read. “An occasional cocktail, highball, beer or ale, need not be restricted and may be most beneficial.”
Such lax recommendations bred today’s convoluted notions on alcohol consumption during pregnancy. According to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, pregnant women have generally consumed alcohol throughout history. Ever since medical technology advanced to include ultrasounds and fetal monitoring in the 1950s, there has been an incremental move toward advising against alcohol consumption.
According to a study published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism, fetal alcohol syndrome went largely unrecognized until 1973, when a pattern of abnormalities began to emerge from children born to alcoholic women. It was first dubbed “tragic disorder” because of the characteristic facial abnormalities and mental retardation born from women who reported alcohol consumption during their pregnancy. It hasn’t even been 50 years since the link was discovered, but the AAP hopes its conclusive statement dispels any confusion or discrepancy that’s still present in today’s society.
"Women of childbearing age who drink alcohol should consider their pattern of drinking," the report’s co-author Christina Chambers, a pediatrics professor at the Center for Better Beginnings at the University of California, San Diego, in a press release. "Avoid binge drinking and avoid pregnancy as long as they are drinking. If pregnancy is planned, then alcohol can be discontinued." She added, the AAP’s statement "is an important stand to take, and hopefully it will lead to less stigma associated with [fetal alcohol spectrum disorders] and to more access to and uptake of prevention and treatment services."
Source: Williams J, Niclasen J, and Chambers C, et al. Pediatrics. 2015.

Regular Exercise May Help Pregnant Women Skip Common Pelvic Girdle Pains While Carrying Baby To End Of Term

For women expecting to conceive a child, exercise may be the key to a more comfortable pregnancy. A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine has linked a lack of physical activity to pregnancy complications, and exercise five days a week may also prevent pain.
The researchers recommended running, ball games, and aerobics for lowering risk of the joint and ligament condition called pelvic girdle pain, which develops in some women during their pregnancy. Symptoms include uncomfortable misalignment or stiffness in the sacroiliac joint, located at the back of the hips, and pain across the lower back or in the area between the vagina and anus. Some women also experience radiating pain through their thighs, and can hear a clicking or grinding sound in their pelvic area, which is most noticeable when they walk, go upstairs, stand on one leg, and turn over in bed.  
For the study, researchers examined 39,000 pregnant women between the ages of 14 and 46 who were expecting their first child between 2000 to 2009. The women were given ultrasounds during their 17th week of pregnancy and asked about the kinds of exercise, if any, they engaged in three months before becoming pregnant. During the 30th week of their pregnancy, the women were asked if they were experiencing any pelvic girdle pain and, if they answered yes, they were also asked about its intensity and frequency.
More than half of the women reported they exercised at least three times a week before they became pregnant and nearly all (90 percent) of those women were still exercising at week 17. One out of every eight women who said they didn’t exercise in the months leading up to their pregnancy experienced pelvic girdle pain at week 30. Women who experienced pelvic girdle pain were also more likely to be under the age of 25, overweight, and a smoker.
Before exercise was found to be a useful preventive measure, doctors often taught pregnant women how to stand correctly and move effectively during activities as simple as standing up, sitting down, and walking. Sometimes, these women would be given a support belt or, in more extreme cases, be sent to an acupuncturist or chiropractor who specializes in treating pregnant women.
Exercise, however, might offer the best benefit when it comes to preventing future pregnancy discomfort. The research team found women who engaged in high-impact exercises like running, aerobics, and ball games were less likely to experience pelvic girdle pain. In addition to this benefit, research has also found exercise could make women’s bodies more capable of carrying a baby as well as potentially emitting analgesic feel-good endorphins, which make the pregnancy easier to handle.

Having Lots Of Sex As Often As Possible May Actually make infertile couples get pregnant

Looking to get pregnant? According to a new study, having lots of sex as often as possible may up your chances of getting a visit from the Stork. A team of researchers from Indiana University recently found that sexual activity, even during non-fertile periods, triggers physiological changes in the body that can overall increase a woman’s chances of getting pregnant.
Although doctors have long advised couples looking to become pregnant to have sex as often as possible, a new study recently published in both Fertility and Sterility and Physiology and Behavior may have finally revealed why this practice can actually help increase a couple’s chances of conceiving. The study consisted of 30 healthy premenopausal women who were not taking hormonal or immunoactive medications. A total of 14 were sexually active and 16 were not. To investigate the link between sexual activity and fertility, the team took the women’s saliva samples at four time points: menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal phases.
Results revealed that sexually active women were significantly more likely to express distinctive changes in the immune system’s helper T cells and immunoglobulin during their non-fertile periods. The immune system works to fight off invading pathogens and microbes by activating antibodies. In order to get pregnancy, the female’s body needs to bypass this autoimmune response, and let down its defenses in order to allow the sperm to successfully fertilize an egg. According to the study, the shift in immunity that women experience after having sex may be a direct response to this dilemma.
"This research is the first to show that the sexual activity may cause the body to promote types of immunity that support conception," lead researcher Dr. Tierney Lorenz explained in a recent statement. "It's a new answer to an old riddle: How does sex that doesn't happen during the fertile window still improve fertility?"
According to the press release, there are several types of helper T cells and immunoglobulin in the immune system, and levels of those specifically associated with aiding in pregnancy were seen to have risen in sexually active non-pregnant women. Higher levels of type 2 helper T cells, which help the body accept foreign bodies that may aid in reproduction, such as sperm and developing embryos, were observed in the sexually active non pregnant women. Sexually active women also had higher levels of immunoglobulin G, an immune system cell typically found in the blood which helps to fight disease without interfering with the uterus.
"The sexually active women's immune systems were preparing in advance to the mere possibility of pregnancy," Lorenz said.
Along with helping us to better understand human reproduction, this finding may be especially useful in helping doctors identify the reasoning behind changes in natural blood test results found in women with certain autoimmune disorders. This is not the first new major immune system finding of the year. In June, researchers discovered a “missing link” between the immune system and the brain — a finding that could change the way we study disease. These new studies have added to growing consensus that suggests that the immune system is not just a passive system waiting to be activated by invading pathogens, but actually an interactive network that reacts to external cues.