/ 28 May 2010

New high in fortysomethings giving birth

More women than ever before in England and Wales are giving birth to their first child in their 40s, official statistics show, which will reopen the debate about the health risks involved in older motherhood.

The trend has pushed the average age at which a women first bears a child to 29.4, the highest ever. Although only a small age rise on the previous year, when the average age was 29.3, it is a full year older than the 28.4 recorded a decade earlier.

The number of women in England and Wales aged 40 and over giving birth reached 26 976 in 2009, the highest since records began, according to the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics’ annual fertility statistics. That was only a small increase on the 26 419 recorded in 2008, but it bucked the overall trend, which saw the first drop in the number of live births since 2001.

In all, there were 706 248 live births in England and Wales in 2009, compared with 708 711 the year before — a fall of 0.3%. In recent years, health experts have warned of the trend of women waiting longer to start a family, often because women are prioritising establishing their careers.

Today’s figures show the number of women giving birth at 40 or over has almost doubled in the past decade and almost tripled in the last 20 years. In 1989, a total of 9 336 women aged 40 or over gave birth; by 1999 it had risen to 14 252.

Although fertility rates for women under 35 fell last year, they rose among 35- to 39-year-olds by 1.2%, and among 40- to 44-year-olds by 2.4%.

Across England and Wales, mothers now have on average 1.95 children, compared with 1.97 in 2008. That is the first annual drop since 2001, when the average number stood at 1.63.

The data also show that 46.2% of all births were to women who were not married, and that 24.7% were to women who had been born outside the UK — both the highest for at least 10 years. The latter figure has risen sharply in recent years. It stood at 12% in 1990 and 14.3% in 1999. —