Birth Begins at Forty

Challenging the myths about late motherhood

Corinne Sweet

We all know about high-profile women who have a baby in their forties, Cherie Blair and Madonna come to mind. But what about an ‘ordinary woman’ who finds she is about to give birth at a time when some of her friends are already grandmothers?

Corinne Sweet, an agony aunt and counsellor, tells what it was like for her when she became pregnant for the first time at forty-two, and how when she went into a bookshop to look for something to read on the subject, all she could find were books with references to ‘old’ mothers-to-be aged thirty-five. Forty plus mothers were off the scale!

Women today are fitter, healthier and more active than previously, and so Sweet has told of her experience and gathered together the stories of other women who became mothers later in life. She sets out to explode the myths surrounding late motherhood, so this book will be a support for any woman who is pregnant in her forties.

It is not ‘new’ for an older woman to have a baby. My own grandmother was nearly fifty when she gave birth to a very bouncing baby weighing fourteen pounds. But today because of the pill we are used to women having control of their fertility, and so the news that a woman is pregnant around menopause age often raises eyebrows. Older mothers who get pregnant have had a mixed press, especially when we read of women who have misled professionals about their age and been given IVF treatment.

So why do some women find themselves buying baby clothes years after their contemporaries? Of course, there are accidental pregnancies for some women who thought their child-bearing days were behind them. Other women do not meet the man they wanted to have a child with until later, and yet others do not get the urge to become pregnant until they are older. Some said they were not ready to be mothers when they were younger.

Most mothers spoke about their lack of energy and exhaustion, but what new mother does not? The author considers the risk for women having babies later than the average mother, but improved medical services have changed for the better over the past thirty years so this need not be a major worry.

I am not totally convinced by her argument that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and that because men can become fathers late in life - think of David Jason, Michael Douglas and Eric Clapton - so too, nowadays, can women. But all the mothers who spoke with Corinne Sweet seemed delighted to have the chance to be a mother, and many were grateful to have become pregnant against the clock.

Birth Begins at Forty covers all the issues you will want to know about if you are embarking on this adventure of your life.

© Jill Curtis 2002

published by Hodder & Stoughton price £6.99   ISBN: 0340756869

and available from