When is the right time to have a baby?

When is the right age to have a baby?
There is always uncertainty as to when the right time to have a baby is. Time has become a crucial consideration today what with women furthering their education and engaging in careers and professions as involving as their male counterparts.

Certain pointers in having and rearing children must be right. Remember that pregnancy and child care is a long term contract that needs proper planning and preparation. Your body must be ready physically and physiologically (functionally), and you must also be psychologically prepared to carry the pregnancy and effectively care for the baby after the birth.

What you must avoid
Having children at an early age, especially before 18 years. Such early pregnancies have numerous complications.

o Very late age, especially after 35 years. There is bound to be a higher risk of congenital malformations due to the aging maternal egg (ovum). Other medical problems like hypertension and diabetes also set in to complicate the pregnancy further. Having a child at an older age creates more of a grandmother-child relationship than a healthy mother-child relationship.

o Giving birth too early or too late brings with it physical, physiological (functional) and pathological (disease) problematic issues. When a woman is older, the body becomes weaker and relatively inactive. Apart from being weighed down by pregnancy and lactation, the general demands of baby and childcare become more difficult: it becomes a case of a tired mother struggling with baby care rather than a healthy mother enjoying a relationship with her own child. Then again, the older the person the wider the generation gap. This can pose as a problem in parenthood. And the younger the person the less the experience in general life, including the stress of pregnancy and child care. This can only increase risk of death and suffering for the mother and child. Extremes in age is therefore not suitable for pregnancy and childbirth.

The question still remains—What is the right age?
The ideal age for women is between 22 and 26 years. After this, your potential deteriorates slowly up to 30 years of age when problems of child bearing start. Achieving fertility becomes more difficult. Body vascular changes and other functional parameters become less favourable. Before 24 years, especially below eighteen years, the body is physically and functionally not fully ready. Psychologically and socio economically you will not be in the best state to care for the pregnancy and the resultant baby, let alone be able to fully care for yourself. However at the end of the day mothering is a personal decision and experience. Three women talked to Pregnant and they had this to say.

Christine Mueni became a mother at the age of 30. By then she was ready, emotionally and physically to embrace the ups and downs that accompany motherhood. She ignored calls from her relatives that time was running out. ‘I still felt young at heart.’ she says. ‘Today my six year old daughter and 1 have an amazing bond.’

And Caroline Njeri had her first child at the age of 23. She was in her last year of study at the university. She admits she was still quite young, but the minute she discovered that she was pregnant her maternal instincts were born, and she has done a good job as mother to her now 10 year old son.

And Mercy Naliaka, 40, is not fazed by all the talk about mothering and old age. She believes that she is a great person and that the child she plans to have next year will be mothered in the best possible way.

Note:
o There are people who believe that giving birth early slows the aging process as compared to giving birth at an advanced age. The fact is that pregnancy weighs down the mother regardless of the age. But the older the mother the more the effects are manifested. One only controls rapid aging through proper birth control and maintaining good health.
o What is seen in extremes of age applies to all human races equally, with little environmental variation. When birth happens at the ideal age all parameters are favourable to the pregnancy, child-maternal Interaction and long term bonding.
o The ideal time has not changed with evolution, only that before people never realized the danger of early and late delivery. With the passage of time people have become wiser. The demands of life also encourage late marriages and child birth commitment. Presently, there are many issues changing in reproductive health demands,
o When a woman falls pregnant at an inappropriate age the risks are raised. She thus needs specialized care under a skilled medical service provider. She should seek for these services as early as possible to prevent any possible complications,
o After menopause one can accidentally get pregnant. There may be a remnant egg or two left. However, chances of getting pregnant are as good as nil.
o Children born to older parents have to deal with issues of security in life when the parents are not economically able or when they pass on. Old age is not the time to struggle with child care, it is energy consuming.

END: PG19/10-11