Mums aged 45-plus becoming 'new normal': How, how many and how much

NEW MUMS aged 45 and over have soared in number in the past few months – nearly half as many again as last year, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).

And numbers of babies born to women aged 50 and over are now at unprecedented highs.

In the country with one of the oldest average ages for first-time mothers in Europe, where approximately one in five women have their first child in their 40s and three-quarters of females aged 35 do not have kids – even if they want to – babies conceived and live births in mums near the end of their fertile years, or even after these are over, are becoming the 'new normal' in Spain.

Stigma surrounding older new parents is almost non-existent, and with job stability and home ownership gradually coming later and later in the lives of men and women alike, the birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe and parenthood tends to be a decision made at the last minute before running out of time.

Babies born to women 50 or over total 64 in three months

Over the first three months of 2021, a total of 682 babies were born to mothers aged 45 to 49 inclusive – still a leap on the same months of 2016, when the total was 577 – and, during exactly the same quarter of 2022, mums of this age group had 910 babies.

Back in 2016, infants born to women aged 50 and over totalled just 27, and the highest on record since then has been 52, but from January to March 2022 inclusive, a total of 64 women aged 50 or over had a baby.

In total, therefore, women aged over 44, with no upper age limit, brought 974 new humans into Spanish society in the first quarter of this year.

The figures, for both age groups separately and together, are the highest ever seen, according to INE data, and the increase is substantial: A jump of 42.8% on the same three months of 2021.

Births were up across all ages in the first quarter of 2022, in fact, says the INE.

From January 1 to March 31, a total of 79,885 babies were born, being an increase of 2,676 on the same period last year. 

It would seem likely that would-be parents decided to shelve any imminent plans to have children when the pandemic struck, due to public health fears and worries about job insecurity or a fall in income, then began to feel 'safe' to conceive from about spring last year onwards.

'Baby fever' seemed to have calmed by around the beginning of summer last year, though, since the number of births in March 2022 was actually down slightly on the same month of 2021, by 7.4% - to a total of 26,843 mid-late Pisceans and early Taureans – or a drop of 2,132.

Figures were also down in March from 2020 – babies conceived in the final pre-pandemic summer went onto become 29,263 births, meaning in the same month of 2022, they had reduced in number by 8.3%, or 2,420.

IVF in single women up 20%

Valencia Fertility Institute (IVI) said single women seeking to become mothers have soared by 20% in the past two years, showing that the idea of waiting until one has settled down with a partner or frantically seeking a 'baby dad' before it is too late is now going out of fashion.

The birth figures for the 45-plus and 50-plus age groups do not give qualitative data, nor maximum ages, so it is not known what percentage used their own eggs – directly or 'thawed' after freezing – compared with donor eggs or donor embryos; how many were girls or boys, or how many women conceived through a heterosexual relationship or 'home insemination' rather than via assisted reproduction.

Nor is it clear how many live births versus conceptions occurred in the same time, since in older mothers, the risk of a miscarriage is much higher than for women in their 20s.

At any one time on earth, an average of 105 boys are born for every 100 girls, and it is not clear whether fertility treatment or parental age affects this.

How age affects fertility: Using donor embryos, it doesn't

In Spain, private fertility clinics will inseminate women or implant embryos up to and including age 50, and as yet, this is believed to be the maximum age in any country, meaning that, in theory, any births to women aged over 51 would have through a relationship rather than treatment.

Natural fertility starts to decline as early as age 27, with the chances of a live birth already being lower than those of non-pregnancy, miscarriage or stillbirth, and by age 40 falls to approximately 20%.

Above 45, chances of carrying a baby to term using one's own eggs is just 5%.

Fertility age is based upon how old the eggs are, not the woman who is pregnant – a woman of 45 to 49 using eggs she had frozen aged roughly 32 will have the same chances of a live birth as a mother of 32, not of one aged 45 to 49.

Donor eggs dramatically up the probabilities, irrespective of the mother's age, since the selection process for egg and sperm donors is extremely stringent, only a very small percentage make the cut, and for females, the upper age of a donor is 35.

The same applies to embryos – those unused after fertility treatment, which can number several or even into the 10s, depending upon the mother's and father's ages, can only be donated for IVF if the eggs involved were extracted when the woman was aged no more than 35.

A woman of any age up to and including the maximum of 50 – up to the very day before she turns 51 – who uses a donor embryo has a probability of a live birth of over 80%.

What fertility treatment involves for mixed or same-sex couples and single women

Egg-freezing fever rapidly started to soar from around 10 years ago as a solution to worries of not being in a settled situation – job, partner and home – in time to conceive unaided, and what was once headline news, two women becoming parents to one baby, is now part of the standard 'menu' of procedures offered by private clinics.

Beyond mid-late 30s, clinics do not normally recommend a woman freezes her eggs for later use, since the process is expensive compared with likely results, but will do so if she wishes despite full awareness of the risks.

In a younger woman, anything from 10 to 30 eggs can be harvested in one operation, but in a woman reaching the end of her fertile years, only between one and three may grow following drug treatment of daily injections for a month and, even then, not all of these may be recoverable or useable.

Even once frozen, there is no guarantee an egg can be successfully fertilised in a laboratory – the chances are much higher with donor sperm, which will be of maximum quality – or that a fertilised egg, or embryo, once implanted, will result in a pregnancy.

Then, the pregnancy may or may not reach full term.

The cost of implanting an embryo is in region of €1,000, on top of egg-freezing, which is typically around €4,000 all told – only about half of which is for the surgical operation itself – and eggs, sperm or embryos held in storage cost around €400 a year for 'maintenance'.

Direct insemination, without freezing, is another option, but rarely successful. In women across the board, of any age, chances of a live birth or even a pregnancy are in region of 15%, and each insemination costs around €1,000.

All-female couples who want to have a baby together can opt for the so-called 'ROPA Method' – the eggs of one woman are extracted, fertilised using donor sperm, and implanted in the womb of the other; whether or not they are married, both women are automatically and legally the parent of the baby born.

Surrogacy remains illegal in Spain, making life much harder for all-male couples or for females who cannot carry a child, such as through health conditions, having to take certain medication, or having had a hysterectomy at a young age.

What you need to know if you're a donor or recipient

Where conception using a donor is not performed at an established clinic, the donor is automatically and legally the parent, even if they do not wish to be and the other party is in a relationship with someone else, perhaps of the same sex.

Parents seeking IVF through donor eggs or sperm also need to be aware that, in Spain, not only is donation completely anonymous whether the person providing the biological material wants to be or not, but they will not be allowed to choose their own – doctors at the clinic will elect the donor, and the parent-to-be does not have a say.

Also, they cannot stipulate any aspect of the donor, and will not be permitted to know anything whatsoever about them. 

All they will know is that the donor will be of approximately their own physical build, hair and eye colour, skin tone and ethnicity – not necessarily nationality – and that they will, necessarily, have passed physical and mental health assessments and be of at least university-level education, as these are standard requirements for any donor.

Donors do not get paid for their efforts – only a set sum constituting 'necessary expenses'.

The withholding of information from the parents and their future children has a twofold impact: Couples tend to not want to know, since their aim is to bring the baby up as though he or she was the biological child of both parents, in the same way as an adopted child - meaning heterosexual and same-sex couples from abroad have been known to travel to Spain specifically for treatment so they do not have to be aware of any characteristics of the third person.

But single women are more likely to feel they deserve a choice in who the 'father' of their child will be and to know as much about him as is possible, even if his actual identity has to remain secret; this means they are more likely to want to seek treatment abroad in countries where anonymity is either optional, such as in Denmark, or not permitted at all, as in the UK and Australia.