Perth doctor says older mothers are a medical risk and selfish

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http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/10/04/3332223.htm

5 October, 2011 8:24AM AWST

By Brooke Bannister

A Perth obstetrician has defended his comments published in The West Australian today saying that older mothers are selfish and will burden their offspring with financial despair.

Dr Barry Walters is a physician in obstetric medicine at Perth's King Edward Memorial Hospital and treats prenatal women for health conditions that he says increases with age.

Dr Walters stressed that his major concern is that older women have a higher risk of medical complications during pregnancy including higher blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and kidney trouble.
"The older a woman is, the more likely she is to develop those types of complications and to see things like miscarriage, premature births, damaged babies, abnormal babies, caesareans etcetera," Dr Walters told ABC's Bryce Green.

"I wouldn't presume to say anybody should or should not get pregnant; I'm saying women need to take these things into account when they make a decision."

He was quoted in the paper saying that older mothers are selfish, self-centred and burden their children later in life with geriatric parents.

"The selfishness side of it is a small aspect but I think that when women are over 40, yes they're having a baby who's a baby for a little time but that child will grow into a person in their 20s and 30s who will have, if the parents are still alive, elderly and potentially unwell parents," Dr Walters said.

"That's the point I was making [in the paper] that was sort of stressed by the paper but it wasn't the main point I was making."

Dr Walters says his comments only refer to women 40 years and older but that it is a slippery slope after the age of 35.

"If a hundred 35-year-old women get pregnant tonight, there's plenty of statistics and research around the world showing about between 20 and 25 of them will miscarry. At the age of 40, 40 per cent will miscarry and at 45 it's about 80 per cent."
Dr Catherine McMahon is a senior lecturer at Macquarie University who focuses on the psychosocial wellbeing of women during pregnancy and early parenthood and says there needs to be a more balanced response to older women having babies.

"It takes two, mostly, to make a baby and most older mothers have older male partners and they're part of the decision."

Dr McMahon says studies have found that the major factor in women delaying pregnancy was finding a committed partner who was willing to have a baby with them.

She also acknowledges that there are more medical risks in older expecting mothers but says this is just one of many factors to take into account when planning to have a baby.

One of Dr McMahon's studies showed older women were more psychologically prepared for pregnancy, able to deal with the stress of parenthood and were less likely to experience depression compared to younger mothers.
"I think it's really important to not stigmatise and label older mothers, certainly in our very large sample we found no evidence that the older mothers were having more problematic adjustment," Dr McMahon said.

King Edward Memorial Hospital distanced itself from Dr Barry Walters's comments today releasing a statement saying the opinions expressed by Dr Walters were his own personal views and not those of the hospital.