Hot Link of the Day #2: Older Mom's

No major problems in babies born to older moms, Statistics Canada finds
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 | 2:41 PM ET
CBC News

More Canadian women wait until they are well into their 30s before giving birth to their first child, but for the most part the babies are generally as healthy as those born to younger moms, according to a Statistics Canada report released Wednesday.

In 1987, only four per cent of first births occurred among women aged 35 or older. The rate nearly tripled to 11 per cent by 2005, the agency said. The proportion of first birth among women in their early 30s also increased, from 15 per cent in 1987 to 26 per cent in 2005.

It's well known that older mothers are at increased risk for miscarriage or stillbirth and pregnancy complications and that their children are at increased risk of birth defects. The report aimed to help fill in the gap in knowledge about the potential effects on children's development.

Children of older mothers said their first word and took their first step at about the same time as those born to mothers in their mid to late 20s. Both groups of children were equally likely to be in excellent or good health up to age five, with similar incidences of asthma.

Both groups also had similar average scores of physical aggression, emotion disorder, anxiety, hyperactivity and inattention. Vocabulary and number knowledge were also similar.

But first-born children born to older mothers were more likely to be late to first sit up by themselves, score lower on motor and social development scales at ages two to three and have lower positive behaviour scores at ages four to five.

'Encouraging' findings
"What I think is important that this report shows is that once the children are born, developmentally [there] aren't very many outcomes that differ between our children of older mothers and children of mothers 25 to 29," study author and research analyst Rochelle Garner said in an interview.

"Hopefully that's encouraging. It warrants looking at these children perhaps when they start going to school whether we're going to see any academic differences."

Whether the delays in motor development carry on as the children start school is not yet known.

Statistics Canada was approached to do the study by researchers in Europe, who have focused on achieving pregnancy and lowering pregnancy complications among older women.

When the results were presented at a conference in The Hague, the Europeans were "surprised and encouraged" that no striking differences have been found so far in Canada, Garner said.

Mothers in both groups shared similar socio-demographic profiles in terms of education and income. About 13 per cent of both groups had a mother with a high school diploma, and about 12 per cent of children in both groups live in a low-income household.

As in previous studies, more mothers 35 or older had hypertension during pregnancy, 23 per cent, compared with 13 per cent of mothers aged 25 to 29.

About 40 per cent of children of older mothers were delivered by caesarean section, almost twice the proportion of children of mothers in the younger group at 23 per cent.

Seventeen per cent of children of older mothers were born pre-term, compared with 11 per cent in the younger group.

About 43 per cent of children of older mothers were breastfed for more than six months, compared with 26 per cent of the younger mothers.