No, a woman’s fertility does not peak in her teens
Nothing sparked this, but as I am continually researching more into midwifery and women’s health, this is something I wanted to put out there for those debating the “right time” to have a kid. Any legal age from 18 to menopause is perfectly doable for women, but there are some misconceptions that people spread about teen and young adult fertility/pregnancy that I want to correct:
Before the age of 25, the major bones of the two hipbones (illium) of a woman’s pelvis is bonded together by cartilage. They do not fuse into bone until the midtwenties. In pregnancy for those under that age, mothers will need proper chiropractic care or other support, or face a lot of pain otherwise. This can be an obstacle if the mother has no health insurance, needs to work a lot on her feet, etc. We can help by advocating for better work environments, but sometimes this can not be avoided.
The woman’s menstrual cycle (and thus her fertility health) does not fully mature until 12 years after her first period. 5-7 years are for regulating estrogen (to ovulate regularly), and the last few years allow for progesterone production to optimize (the hormone produced after ovulation, that causes many health problems if not at proper levels). So if a girl has her period at, say, 8 years old, she will not have a mature hormonal cycle until she is 20 years old. Even then, starting your period that young is considered abnormal (12-14 is the normal average), and premature menstruation is a societal health concern that can increase a girl’s risk of breast cancer and other problems.
A woman’s fertility truly “peaks” around her late twenties. Even then, her fertility declines afterwards but very slowly so. It does not up and vanish after some arbitrary due date. Assuming a woman has no underlying conditions such as PCOS or endo (or is receiving helpful treatment for it if she does), and also assuming that she is living a healthy lifestyle and diet, she can still become pregnant even into her early forties. Each woman’s fertility and health is a unique case, and should be treated as such by her family and care provider when discussing family planning.
Much of the “infertility” crisis that “older” women are facing can be prevented and addressed through sufficient fertility awareness education, as well as targeting reproductive health issues when the woman is still a teen or young woman. If a woman in her thirties has endometriosis that her doctors never diagnosed until she began to try for a baby, it was her untreated endo that caused infertility, not her “selfish” motive to have a career first and delay childbearing. Women need better healthcare, not undue pressure to have kids when they are not ready. Obviously infertility is real and some women will need higher tech involvement to combat it, but I am merely saying that much of that use can be avoided (and save people MUCH money and emotional turmoil) with proper sex education and support.
Teen mothers are more likely to experience complications. Part of this is due to mistreatment and bias in the medical system, so addressing and remedying that through proper social awareness and support, such as hiring a doula, can help lower those complications; but it doesn’t help when you have a shitty OBGYN when your body is clearly struggling, and they refuse to give you an epidural, or to take your postpartum depression seriously. Teen mothers deserve our full support to keep themselves and their babies healthy, but we also have a duty to not mislead girls about their health and spread falsehoods about teen pregnancy.
It’s true that “no one is ever ready for parenthood”, but that doesn’t mean you jump into it without proper discernment and preparation. There are parenting classes, support groups, and even books that can help a person decide when and how to have kids, rather than force them to jump into it blindly and irresponsibly. Childrearing – from conception through pregnancy to birth throughout childhood – is a full time job, and one that needs to be respected as such. Women and men alike have a right to discern whether they should have children, and to be open to research and common sense knowledge about when the time is “right” for them. Pushing people to have kids when they are not fully mature or educated is unhelpful, and in some cases, can even be dangerous.
If someone is 18-24 years of age, they have every right to plan a family as a legal adult, I am not saying that no one in that age group should avoid having kids. But these people should do so with the full knowledge of the risks and drawbacks of doing so, and be prepared to handle them if they come up as a problem. I happily had my first pregnancy at 19 and do not regret it, but I do regret not knowing the things I know now. Had I known, my pregnancy and health experience would have been MUCH better, and prevented unneeded medical trauma that had occurred. The issues I faced were “normal” for a very young parent, but could have been lessened greatly has I simply been informed about it and knew about my options. This is something that the “teens are at their most fertile ever!!!” crowds do not ever talk about.
With all that said, people need to stop glamorizing teen fertility and pregnancy (the pre-18 kind). Not only is it setting these girls up to be vulnerable to toxic creeps/relationships, but giving false information about their health can prevent them from fully advocating for their options when pregnancy does occur (planned or unplanned). Teens CAN have a safe pregnancy, but only when they and their support team are fully informed of the facts; even then, the pregnancy should not occur in the first place, and I only share this tidbit here to make sure that I don’t demonize teen pregnancy when trying to prevent it’s romanticization.
Pregnancy and fertility should be respected as biological norms, as well as noble responsibilities, for women and girls, men and boys, instead of something that is hated and feared – and we can only do that once we share factual truth, instead of pedo-induced, psuedoscientific fantasy. Knowledge is Power, and it can help women safely plan their families at any age, or to take care of themselves properly should it happen too soon.
References for further reading:
Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin
Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler
babycenter.org
factsaboutfertility.org
naturalwomanhood.org
americanpregnancy.org
larabriden.com
midwiferytoday.com
Don’t let yourself be scaremongered into having children before you’re fully ready, physically and emotionally. If you want to give birth before you’re 25, that’s your choice as an adult, but be informed and prepared that you’re more likely to have risks and complications that young.
Waiting until at least your mid to late 20′s when your hips are fully formed is the safest and healthiest option for both the mother and baby.
OP doesn’t mention it, but complications during pregnancy and childbirth is globally the number one cause of death for teenage girls age 15-19. This is because most teenage girl’s bodies are just not developed enough to be prepared for the stress and pressure pregnancy and childbirth puts on their bodies. These girls shouldn’t be demonized for their pregnancy because if a pregnancy happens that young it’s because of a failure of her education system’s sex ed programs (or complete lack thereof), lack of access to contraceptives or lack of access to abortion, or because she was pressured or coerced into unprotected sex by her partner who didn’t care about her safety and wellbeing, or sexual assault. But to reiterate OP, even though these girls shouldn’t be blamed or demonized for their teenage pregnancy and they should instead be given support and resources, those pregnancies should not be happening in the first place. I’m tired of grown ass men trying to justify being creeps to teenage girls as ‘biology because teenage girls are at their most fertile’ when that’s just dead wrong because most teenage girls are not ready physically or emotionally to reproduce, and reproducing at that age is often deadly.
It’s a general pattern that the more developed a country is, the later women have their first birth. That’s because delaying childbirth when possible has a lot of advantages for both the parents and the child, but especially for the mother. Women are still expected to do the hyper majority of childcare (hopefully that can change and someday childcare will be equally shared between parents, but right now women are still expected to do most or all of the work) so having children early is also more likely to disrupt a woman’s chances at education or starting a career if she’s suffering from having less time and energy because of having to take care of a baby. Maybe this is exactly why under patriarchy women are pressured and scaremongered into having kids young before they’re fully ready physically or emotionally. This is why being allowed to delay childbirth until education is finished and a career is successfully established is an important gender equality issue. Women are more likely to rise to high paying careers and positions of power when they’re able to delay childbirth.
Not only that but women losing fertility or having a higher risk of birth defects in their 30′s is also a scaremongering exaggeration. It’s true that your risk of birth defects rises in your late 30′s and early 40′s, but it rises from 0.8% in your 20′s to about 1.8% in your late 30′s and 40′s, meaning chances of birth defects are still pretty slim even in your late 30s and into your 40′s. But you still hear it everywhere that your chances of birth defects double because they’re trying to scaremonger you into having kids young, while it’s true that your chances double, what they’re conveniently leaving out is that they double from a tiny and marginal fraction of a chance, to a slightly less tiny but still marginal fraction of a chance. Giving birth in your late 30′s and into your 40′s is still perfectly safe and healthy.
However, it’s really important to mention that women are actually technically considered ‘of childbearing age’ into their mid 50′s. I will say that after your mid 40′s it probably does get riskier and harder because you have a higher chance of miscarriage at that age, but the average healthy cis woman is classified as ‘of child bearing age’ until her mid 50′s. This is because you actually can get pregnant all the way up until the end of menopause. A lot of women think they lose their fertility as soon as menopause starts, but they actually can still get pregnant during menopause and until menopause finishes. This is one of the reasons why the rate of abortions for middle aged women is so high, because they assume their fertility just up and vanishes as soon as they hit their 40′s or as soon as they had the first sign of menopause, and that’s often not the case. So as a heads up, you should still be using contraceptives until you are completely finished with menopause.
-yinx1
