Best Age to Have a Baby

Medically, the perfect age to have a baby is when a woman is in her twenties as during this time there are lesser chances of a woman being infertile or facing pregnancy related complications. Some medical researches suggest that for a woman, the best age to get pregnant is twenty four. After this as the woman gets older, there is a decrease in her fertility. It is observed that as women reach their thirties, their chances of getting pregnant or the pregnancy lasting full term start decreasing. Although healthy pregnancies are even seen in women in their forties, still the chances of a woman experiencing a miscarriage increases if the baby is conceived at such an age.

Besides the medical reasons, there are a lot of other things too that couples who are planning a pregnancy should consider. Let's understand what these factors are.

Things to Consider

Health
The most important thing to consider when deciding to have a child is the health of the parents. Only if both the parents, especially the mother is fit enough to conceive and carry the child for the whole duration of the pregnancy, should they consider getting pregnant.

Financial Stability
The finances have to be in place. It is quite obvious that when the baby is born either of the parents will have to sacrifice a bit of their professional life to take care of the baby. It might be possible that one of them has to quit their job too for a while. So, only if the parents are financially secure and they think that they can run a house on a single salary, that they should go ahead with the plan of extending their family.

Emotional Maturity
After childbirth, when the child enters the family, the entire attention of the parents is on how to provide him with the best of facilities. As the focus shifts more on the child rather than on each other, either parent can feel neglected. Also, it's seen that physical intimacy between a couple decreases after the arrival of the baby. All these things may lead to relationship problems. So when planning to have a child, the couple should be emotionally mature enough to handle all these.

Only once all these factors have been thoroughly considered and discussed between the couple that they should start planning a family. Having a child whether in twenties or thirties or forties have their own share of advantages and disadvantages. Let's discuss these in detail.

Twenties
When the woman is still in her twenties, her health is in the perfect condition to conceive a child. There are lesser chances of infertility, miscarriage and birth defects. A young mother has the required energy to run after a small child and when he enters his teens, can be a friend to him as the age difference between them is not that much. The disadvantage of having children in their twenties is that the parents might not be financial stable. There might still be some student loan or house loan pending or the parents might be considering going to college and need money for that. Another drawback of having children young is that the parents might have recently got married and do not have the required level of intimacy to handle such a big responsibility together.

Thirties
When parents are in their thirties, they are financially sound, their marriage is stronger and can handle the responsibilities that come with a child in a much better way. Thus thirties is perhaps the easiest time to get pregnant. However, the body of the mother, especially if she has crossed thirty five, might not be fit enough to have a healthy child. There are more chances of having a child with genetic abnormalities when the mother is in her late thirties.

Forties
Medically, forties is not at all the right age to get pregnant as there are much greater chances that the baby will be born with certain genetic defects. Moreover when the child reaches his twenties, the parents will already be in their sixties and thus may face a huge generation gap.

The average age to have a baby is increasing every year. Some sociologists even say that for women, the best age to conceive is between the years twenty seven and thirty four, as they are much more prepared - physically, emotionally and financially to have a child. On the other hand medical experts say that the early twenties is the perfect age. As can be seen, having a child at any age will have its own share of ups and down. The bottom line is - are both the partners ready for a lifelong commitment and sharing of responsibilities? When the answer to this question is in the affirmative, that is the best age to have a baby.