Age is merely just a number and Laura Wade-Gery, executive director of Marks & Spencer has certainly proven so. She is expecting her first child at the age of 50.
There seems to be a growing trend of women conceiving babies at an older age, prioritising in building a career first. The number of women who have aged 40 and above who are having a baby has increased fourfold in the past 3 decades, which accounts for one in 25 births.
However, there are still a majority of women who are afraid of being pregnant at a later age. It could also be due to the culture and society which they belong to that makes them feel as though they ought to follow a set pattern in life. Most women may still prefer to have their children in their 20s as they may believe that they are more fertile at that age, rather than being in their 40s or 50s.
Anne Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), believes that women who opt to have a late pregnancy should be supported, not made to feel frightened. She said, “Women are often warned about the dangers of leaving it 'too late' to try for a family, and this data confirms that far from facing a fertility cliff-edge at age 35, women still have a good chance of conceiving.”