Being a mother after age 35 improves a woman's mental abilities

Women become mothers at increasingly advanced ages. Although the best age to be a mother, in biological terms, has been determined at 25, the truth is that due to the current lifestyle, the age of being a mother has been delayed in recent years. In Spain, according to INE data, the average age of first-time mothers is 32.2 years and 30% of women have their first child with more than 35 years.

Being a mother after 35 is related to greater risks in pregnancy and childbirth, but not everything is negative. According to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society Being a mother after age 35 improves a woman's mental abilities. Women who have their first child past this age, get better results in tests of mental acuity, problem solving and verbal abilities.

The older, more complications in pregnancy

It is increasingly common for women to become mothers after age 35, an age at which some work and socioeconomic stability has been achieved that encourages them to live the experience of motherhood. But from that age, the biological clock is no longer as accurate and the chances of being a mother are reducing.

Being a mother at an advanced age increases the chances of complications during pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the risk of abortion and chromosomal abnormalities in the baby.

Advertising

It is believed that almost 30 percent of pregnant women over 35 suffer from perinatal pathology. They are more likely to develop complications in pregnancy, among them the most common are gestational diabetes, a problem that involves serious risks to the mother and the baby, hypertension, the main cause of prematurity, and uterine bleeding.

In Babies and more Being a mother at 40: the risks of pregnancy at an advanced age

After 35 years they also increase the probability of having a premature delivery (9.6% of deliveries over 35 years are premature) and complications in childbirth such as caesarean sections or instrumented deliveries, with respect to younger women. That, not to mention an increased risk of the fetus suffering from some type of chromosopathy.

But not everything is bad

It is not the first time that the mother's advanced age is related to certain health benefits. In 2014 we knew a study that ensures that women who are mothers with more than 33 years could live longer. Specifically, they were twice as likely to live up to 95 years or more than women whose last child was born before age 30.

In Babies and more With 20 years, the chance of conceiving is 25 percent; with 40 years it is reduced to five percent

Now, we know another benefit of late motherhood. A study by researchers at the University of Southern California, led by Dr. Roksana Karim, based on the responses of more than 830 postmenopausal women, has found a positive relationship between being a mother beyond 35 and mental abilities .

One of the reasons could be because the increase in hormones that occurs during pregnancy could affect the chemistry of the brain, and the older the mother, the longer these changes in her brain will last. This translates into better cognitive function in advanced ages.