BI215-A: Principles of Genetics

Many women in the United States are delaying their pregnancies later and later into life. But, delaying this late into adulthood can potentially cause some problems for the mother and abnormalities in the fetus. One of the problems of advanced maternal age is that it is more difficult to get pregnant because women are born with a limited number of eggs that are typically ovulated from puberty up until menopause (when the number of eggs is extremely low or nonexistent). So, the older a woman is, the less eggs she would naturally have. Women in this category are also more likely to become pregnant with multiples, like twins or triplets. Having multiples increases your risk of danger for the fetuses because of potential limitation of food. Women in this category are more likely to develop high blood pressure during their pregnancy. This will cause the pregnancy to have to be watched over more by doctors ("Healthy Lifestyle: Getting Pregnant"). 

One genetic disorder that can be caused by advanced maternal age is Trisomy 18 or Edward's syndrome. This genetic disorder caused by meiotic disjunction. This disorder normally has about a 50% mortality rate in the womb and females live longer than males. It is rare for a child with this deformity, but about 10% live into early adulthood (20s or 30s) but have developmental delays and need full-time care ("What is Trisomy 18?)".

Klinefelter syndrome is a disorder caused by having an additional x chromosome in males (xxy). Some of the symptoms at birth are weak muscles, delayed speech and delayed testicular descension into the scrotum. In teenagers, the disease looks like being taller than average, absent or incomplete puberty, weak bones and low energy levels. This disease also causes infertility (Klinefelter Syndrome). 

Triple X syndrome is another genetic disorder associated with advanced maternal age. This occurs in female fetuses where there is an extra x chromosome. The severity of symptoms really varies: where some experience no symptoms to others having developmental delays due to the disorder. Physical symptoms include, flat feet, kidney problems, ovarian abnormalities and widely spaced eyes ("Triple X Syndrome". 

One advancement that is helping with genetic disorders is Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis or PGD. This is done on embryos from IVF, or in vitro fertilization. This test screens for known genetic disorders and can be invaluable when one of the parents has a genetic disorder that could impact the life of the fetus (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)) . 

My mother was 33 when she had me, and I know many of my friends had mothers who were older than her. I think that pregnancy after 35 is okay so long as all the parties involved understand the risks that the mother and baby could face. I think that pregnancy ages have been pushed back because more women are focusing on their careers and gaining a stable job path so they are deciding to wait to have children until later in life. I think that if we want women to not feel the need to wait that long then we need to fix the attitudes that society has towards working mothers and we need to improve our maternity and paternity leave so that people feel their jobs are secure even if they have children. 

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