Should We be Treating Having a Baby After 40 Like it's Some Revolutionary Thing?

When Anne Hathaway revealed that she's pregnant with her third baby, the news quickly became about the actress's age.

Listen, you know how we feel about terms like "geriatric pregnancy" and "advanced maternal age" (if not, a quick summary: We hate them), but here's the thing: Age is a factor in reproductive health, and at 43, Hathaway is well over the threshold of both of those labels, which kick in at age 35.

Does that mean there's something revolutionary about the fact that she's having a baby? No. As somehow who had a harder time getting pregnancy at 28 than many women I know who conceived at 40, age is a factor, but contrary to what some people think, your ability to get pregnant doesn't just completely fall off a cliff once you turn 35.

We're seeing more and more women have children after 40: Last year, the number of babies born to moms over 40 outpaced the number of babies born to teen moms. Hathaway is far from the only celebrity to have a baby later in life. And of course, reproductive technology has come a long, long way, and has given real people so many more options when it comes to family planning.

What Hathaway is doing shouldn't be newsworthy. The fact that we're talking this much about a woman's reproductive status in general is icky to me. But as a journalist in this space, a person who comments on the state of women's health issues? I don't quite know what the right approach is here. I know people will see news like this and claim that all the advice we heard about age and fertility were "fear-monering". And yeah, some of it probably is. At the same time, not all narratives about age and pregnancy aren't rooted in fear; they're rooted in fact.

Because the reality is, getting pregnant at 43 is often challenging, sometimes impossible. Fertility does decline, and the risks of complications do increase with age. When people see their favorite celebrities have babies, seemingly without issue, without the necessary context, it can make people think there's nothing to really consider before delaying parenthood. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to share this context and comment on people's reproductive lives.

Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. Age affects fertility. Not everyone has the resources to utilize the reproductive technology that exists. Not everyone will still have the ability to conceie without this technology — ever, but especially into their 40s.

And so, while I don't love talking about a woman's pregnancy and age...I also think it's important to paint a full picture.