Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara became the oldest confirmed mother when she gave birth to twins very close to her 67th birthday in 2005.
She was 130 days older than Adriana Iliescu, the 66-year-old Romanian mother who boasted that she had plenty of time to have another baby a few years before that. These two women and many others who gave birth at similar ages didn't conceive accidentally. We are, of course, talking about IVF with donor eggs.
Becoming pregnant beyond 50 is also possible naturally for some women — and the oldest woman on record to conceive naturally was Dawn Brooke, who became pregnant at 59 years of age in the 1990s. Conceiving naturally at that age is rare, but older new mothers are indeed becoming more commonplace.
The oldest woman recorded to have conceived naturally may have been 59, but though Dawn Brooke landed herself a place in the Guinness Book of Records, you can place "naturally" in inverted commas without feeling bad about it — she was taking estrogen when she got pregnant.
So, how likely are you truly to be able to get pregnant naturally at age 50 and beyond?
If you're an average 30-year-old woman, you have a 20 percent chance of getting pregnant every given month, providing you're having regular unprotected sex and your partner is also fertile. That might not sound like a very high chance, but the vast majority of women in their thirties get pregnant during their first year of trying. [1]
By the time 40 rolls around, those odds have dropped sharply. The average 40-year-old woman only has a five percent chance of conceiving every month. Multiple factors have roles to play in this sharp reduction, but many women are already getting ready for the menopause by the time they are in their early forties. [2]
Fifty-one is the average age of menopause. Menopause means, by definition, that a woman has been free of menstrual periods for a full year (12 months), as part of the process that marks the end of a woman's reproductive years. Before reaching that milestone, a woman will go through a transitional period of perimenopause that can last longer or shorter. During this stage, she notices her periods become less regular and less frequent. She may go without a period for three months, only to be surprised with menstruation just when she thought it would never happen again. [3]
It's no surprise that ovulation, the process in which eggs are released by the ovaries, becomes erratic during this stage. At the same time, the actual quality of a woman's eggs also declines. This fact explains why women are less likely to conceive at 40 and beyond, even before entering the perimenopause. Nonetheless, pregnancy can happen between a woman's late forties and early fifties, if she is still having periods, even irregular ones, and if she ovulates.
What does this mean for you and your odds of conceiving after 45?
The bottom line? More mature women who would love to get pregnant should always assume it will not happen without the assistance of modern technology, while those who don't want a(nother) baby should never believe they can safely ditch their contraceptives.
I personally know a 49-year-old woman who conceived during the perimenopause because she thought there was no way she'd get pregnant.
READ Menopause - Symptoms, Treatment and Prevention
While she and her husband are ecstatic to have a little one around the house now, her pregnancy did come as a huge shock. If you don't want a surprise pregnancy to happen to you, don't say no to birth control until you've been free of periods a full 12 months. On the other hand, thinking you can still get pregnant because you still have periods, and there's no need to see a fertility specialist, isn't a good idea if you want to conceive beyond your early forties.
The medical risks of pregnancy certainly go up with age. These risks apply to both mother and baby. [4]
We're not talking about the risk of having a baby with a birth defect, which can be avoided by using an egg donor, but the risks of pregnancy itself, along with labor and delivery.
Women who are 50 over (or just nearing that time) would be wise to consult with a fertility specialist to discuss fertility treatment options. The sooner you realize your dream, the safer it will be for everyone involved.