sassysage's Blog

i’ve always had two statues in my home which pay hommage to Oshun the African goddess of fertility.  it’s not so much that i was trying to get pregnant, i just thought they looked super cool.

but after watching last week’s episode of Dr. Oz, i see that i might need to start renting Oshun out to the millions of women who are searching for strategies to help them conceive.

-did you know that a woman over 40 has only a 5% chance of having a baby naturally vs. the 50% chance for a woman in her mid 20s!

-did you know that infertility,   the inability to conceive a child after 12 months of trying, is on the rise in the U. S.

– did you know that over 10% of those trying are infertile (that’s one in 10 people!)

– did you know that fertility in women starts to decline after 30

my guess is that you, like i, had no idea.  other than the awkward conversations i’ve had with my gyn as she poses the baby question while peering over the stirrups, the issue of pregnancy timing rarely comes up.

so why aren’t we talking?

part of it might be that women just don’t know it’s a major issue.  i think it’s got a lot more to do with women’s empowerment and our rise through the education and career ranks.   waiting to have a baby until 30’s enables a woman to get a good jump on her education and career. the biological ticking clock can be the ultimate glass ceiling. i think many women choose to avoid the thought all together and hope for the best…

but hoping for the best, say the docs, is not a good idea because the stats speak for themselves.  women in their 20s are much more likely to conceive and have healthy babies than those in their 30s, 40s and beyond.  

so what can we do?  i say we need to educate teen girls and young women.   okay i admit this will be a challenge!

talking to teen girls and young women about their pregnancy plans will probably not be a politically favorable cause.  but to me it makes sense. teen girls/young women will have time on their side to figure this all out before ‘it’s too late’ so to speak.   this means having conversations with teen girls about mapping out their pregnancy timeline to match both family and career priorities.  making sure they understand the responsibilities and challenges of motherhood and as well as the importance of being emotionally and financially ready.

but when is it too early (or too late) for a women to start thinking about when she wants to have a baby?

does encouraging earlier births put women back to pre-feminist era times?

i wanna hear from you…let’s start talking