02 October 2016 02 Oct 2016

Advancing attitudes towards maternal age

A former school friend of mine, who had her first child this year, told me about her anger when an obstetrician referred to her pregnancy as ‘geriatric’. Inappropriate though this term may seem (indeed, it has largely dropped out of use in health care), my erstwhile classmates and I must face the fact that we have now crossed the line into what is known as ‘advanced maternal age’.