• Question: What age are women most likey to produse a healthy baby?

    Asked by annadvnoo to Katie on 21 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by coopere.
    • Photo: Katie Howe

      Katie Howe answered on 21 Nov 2012:

      Hi annadvnoo,

      The chance of having a baby with the wrong number of chromosomes goes up dramatically from about 35. I have put a graph showing this up on my profile page – it really is a very sharp increase…! It is even more important to understand how/why this happens nowadays as a lot of women wait til they are a bit older to have children as they want a career first.

      Since the chromosomes contain the DNA which are the instructions for making your body, the wrong number of chromosomes means the body gets confused about which set of instructions to follow and this leads to problems for the baby. For example in Downs syndrome where babies have an extra copy of chromosome number 21 the symptoms are a lot of learning difficulties and growth problems.

      The reason for these problems is that womens eggs can get a bit dodgy when she gets older. But that doesn’t mean that older women will definately have a unhealthy baby. Younger womens eggs can also go a bit dodgy and my research is looking at how that happens as well.

      I hope that is helpful!

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