(Montreal) As more and more Canadian women choose to have children later in life, a recent study indicates that pregnant women aged 35 and over tend to be stigmatized by medical recommendations and public policies.
Posted at 12:26 p.m.
“There’s a lot of emphasis on biomedical risks,” says co-author of the research, Concordia University political science professor Francesca Scala.
It is true that some risk factors increase with age. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) cites “premature birth, low birth weight, miscarriage, placenta previa, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, cesarean birth” as problems that then become more frequent.
Although she acknowledges that “these are valid concerns” and that expectant mothers should be well informed about them before making decisions, Scala points out that such an emphasis on potential dangers often paints older mothers as “at risk”, “abnormal” or as being “irresponsible reproductive citizens”.
For example, the PHAC described in a 2008 document the tendency to delay pregnancy as “a huge clinical and public health concern”, she recalls.
In Quebec, since November 2021, the costs of in vitro fertilization are only covered for women under the age of 42 due to a success rate that drops rapidly around this age.
Moreover, even if the various organizations “are very careful not to make any moral judgment whatsoever on the value of the life of a disabled person […]there is a lot of emphasis on the likelihood of an older mother giving birth to a child with a disability, the professor explains, and on the role of women as reproductive citizens in limiting these risks”.
A perfect mother
The idea that a mother should absolutely be young, healthy and vibrant with energy is ubiquitous, according to Pre Scala.
“There is this idea that women are the only ones responsible for the children […] that the world of motherhood encompasses and consumes their whole life,” she explains, and that to live up to those expectations, you have to have the energy of youth.
“A woman who looks older, who has gray hair […], this is not necessarily what one would consider an ideal mother. »
She cites one of the documents studied, recommendations on in vitro fertilization published by the Canadian Medical Association in 2015. Although the text argues that preventing women from accessing these services would not be ethical, he adds that “older women are more at risk of experiencing complications, which could endanger the safety of the offspring, in addition to the psychological or social discomfort that the child could experience having a mother old enough to be a grandmother.
“I think ageism has a role in it,” argues the professor.
According to her, “there are many benefits to having children later on”. Previous research has indicated that older mothers are often better prepared to raise a child, have better financial security and greater relationship stability. “Recent studies also suggest that older childbearing is associated with long-term benefits for children, such as better language skills and better academic performance,” her paper said.
Even without bad intentions, personal aspirations and motherhood are often presented as being in opposition, she argued. For example, in a guide published by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada in 2011, it is explained that with the mistaken belief that assisted reproduction works every time, “unfortunately, it can give women a false optimism that they can delay their pregnancy while they pursue their education and career. This guide has since been withdrawn by the Company.
“On the one hand, women are encouraged to have a career, to be self-sufficient and to have a stable relationship, but on the other hand, they are warned that their biological clock is advancing,” notes the professor.
The study, titled “Problematizing older motherhood in Canada: ageism, ableism, and the risky maternal subject,” was published last March in the scientific journal Health, Risk & Society. About twenty publications from medical orders and governments dating from 1993 to 2021 were studied.