pregnancy at 47

[stratis63]

My wife is pregnant at the age of 47.
I know its not nataural.
My biggest problem is the following.
Are there prenatal test to ensure that the baby has not a birth defect.
The doctors say that  the test show only 70% of the conditions or the birth defect at that age.,
whereas in younger women ie less than 35 this percentage is very high close to 99%
Neither she or me do have any health problems, However I would like to know form doctors who safe and precise the pregnancy tests are for a person of that age.
The doctors told me that the tests can show physical disabilities but any mental dissilities will not show and women of that age have a high risk of those disabilities.
Is so scary. could please infom me??

[Alexis2358]

I am 43 and 13 weeks pregnant.    I was worried about the same thing and wanted to find out before we started telling everyone.    I was advised to have a test called CVS.   This is where they take a sampling of your placenta via a catheter and test it for downs syndrome, trisomy 13 and trisomy 18, and a few more "uncommon" genetic disorders.    This test can be done between 10 and 13 weeks 6 days.    I had mine done at 10 weeks 6 days.   It took one day to get preliminary results which are 98% and 4 days to get the final result of 99.9%.   They do not offer or do this test on younger women unless there is a family history, so it would be untrue to say its more correct in younger women.     The risk of m/c with this test is 1 - 3% depending on the physician doing the test and how much experience they have.

The next option between 11 and 13 weeks is a nuchal fold test which is done by measuring the nuchal fold on the back of the baby's neck via ultrasound and doing a blood test of mom.     this test is about 85%

The third option is amnio.  This test is done between 15 and 18 weeks, the risk of m/c is the same as the CVS test.    This test they insert a needle into the sac, withdraw some amniotic fluid and test it.   The results take 2 weeks to get back and are 99%.   The drawback to this test is you are much farther along and clearly showing at this stage, so if you wished to terminate, its a much more difficult process.

At 20 weeks of any pregnancy (regardless of moms age) an u/s is performed to then look for another other abnormalities, such as spina bifida, missing fingers/toes, or another other type of abnormalties that are more skeletal in nature.

Hope this helps.    Good luck, I wish you the best.

[adgal]

Congratulations to you and your wife.  I am not certain what you mean by not natural.  Getting pregnant at 47 is not super common, but it does happen, and as Sally said, most of the time everything is just fine.

Sally already mentioned the tests available. They are as accurate in a 47 year old women as in a younger women.  Amniocentresis is about 99% accurate, but yes, there can be some risk involved although if performed by a reputable clinic, it is minimal. It will test for the common chromosonal abnormalities.

As for mental health isssues, there is no prenatal test for those.  But there really is no major cause for alarm.

While challenges such as you describe can be more common in older women, they are certainly not a guarantee.  However, no pregnancy or birth is without some level of risk.  Most of the time everything is just fine.

Congrats again, and best wishes.

[Super_sally888]

Hi,

it is quite possible for a woman of 47 to have a healthy baby.  in fact it's more likely it will be healthy than not.

There are screening tests that can be used to check the health of the baby.  Some of these, like ultrasound and low risk and not invasive - but cannot give clear answers (and have high false positive rate).  Others like amniocentresis can give clear answers, but can increase risk of miscarriage.

Trust that this is for a reason.  Congratulations to you and your wife. What a wonderful gift you've been given.