GYN CHRONICLES
Women , Age , And Infertility
Dr . Maureen Owiti
This is yet another great moment as we celebrate the joy of being alive . We can all appreciate this , as I am sure we have all been either afflicted or affected by the coronavirus pandemic . However on this particular column , I ’ m giving us all a massive break and going to ramble about one of my pet subjects … Fertility .
I ’ m on a mission to save women from themselves . We face another huge pandemic , the crisis that is family . Our social fabric has broken down and family is a word that can describe many different things from traditional mother , father and children to blended families and even homosexual couples adopting children and having families in some countries .
It is quite ironic that in some cases the ground is ripe , a couple have gotten married and I mean the old fashioned man and woman and want to progress to the next stage of the relationship and have children . One year , two years …. Nothing the lady is not popping babies as would have been expected . Now add the lady is 40 years old at the time of marriage .
Modern culture has exerted many pressures on the woman . Due to education and work opportunities women have become more emancipated and are doing phenomenal things . We have women astronauts , neurosurgeons , engineers , lawyers , financiers , IT gurus you name it , women are venturing into territories erstwhile dominated by our male counterparts . I am all for this having had a father who was way ahead of his time and treated his wonderful girls as he did his son . All my siblings and I were encouraged and supported 100 % to pursue our career goals .
Women should be encouraged to live up to their full potential , unfortunately this puts pressures on other spheres of their lives . They are still the primary custodians of the home and family . The biggest challenge the modern woman has is how to balance her career ambitions with her ambitions to become a mother , if at all . I have met quite a number of women who out-rightly state they do not want to have children and if you are one of them this article is definitely not for you . However , if you do have plans to ever have children then I will need you to pay close attention .
A while back I met a client , a successful lawyer Jeanie ( not her real name ), who came in with her doting husband . They were a very cute couple , in love and their relationship had a very interesting dynamic . The husband adored her and would do anything to protect her . They
Women have a lifespan for reproduction . The capacity for a woman to conceive is normally excellent in her early twenties . Women should endeavor to have children prior to the age of 35 . 35 ??!!! Yes , and even 35 is putting it a bit late . had tied the knot about a year ago and had been actively trying to conceive since then , but to no avail . They had seen another colleague who had put them on the usual clomiphene citrate ( this is a drug used for ovulation induction ), which they had done for three months without any success .
They had seen me on some TV show and decided to give my services a try . Whenever a couple walks into my consultation room and the issue is desire to conceive , my first question is always “ How old is SHE ?” I may sound very sexist and discriminative but the facts speak for themselves , and loudly so ! Women think they can have children at any age . Unfortunately , this is the biggest fallacy ever on earth .
Women have a lifespan for reproduction . The capacity for a woman to conceive is normally excellent in her early twenties . Women should endeavor to have children prior to the age of 35 . 35 ??!!! Yes , and even 35 is putting it a bit late .
In physiology we learn that eggs ( oocytes ) are all produced when female foetuses are still in their mother ’ s wombs . This number reaches maximum at about 20 weeks of gestation when the female foetus has about 6-7 million oocytes . From that time this number continuously reduces via natural death / atresia . All cells die and these oocytes keep getting depleted over time .
By the time the female foetus is born this number has already reduced to about 1-2 million . We cannot expect a new born child to have children and we wait for puberty to occur , before a girl can bear children . Our first outlier is here : the world ’ s youngest mother is Lina Marcela Medina de Jurado from Peru who gave birth at 5 years and 7 months . Obviously
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