Prenatal Panic

Panic over the ticking biological clock intensified in 2002, upon publication of economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s book, Creating a Life: What Every Woman Needs to Know About Having a Baby and a Career. In it, Hewlett advises women to bear children while young or risk remaining remorsefully childless. Forty-two percent of the professional women she interviewed for the book were childless at age 40. Hewlett stated that only 14 percent of the interviewees chose not to have children, giving the impression that the remaining majority simply waited until it was too late, regrettably. She failed to mention that the 14 percent referred to how many women knew during college that they didn’t want children later on. And she failed to ask participants the most obvious question: Are you pleased with your decision? While she received criticism for these flaws, the misperceptions and panic the book triggered remained. Paired with misconstrued data and the media’s mega-microphone, it’s no wonder anxiety regarding female fertility runs rampant.

“The concern of being able to have children is significant enough that many women are willing to have a child before a committed relationship or marriage,” says Charles Shutt, MD, an obstetrician/gynecologist in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. It’s the fearful motivation that’s the problem here. In fact, the concern about not being able to conceive, he says, is prevalent enough that women under age 35 account for 45 percent of doctor visits regarding reproductive assistance.

Such fear can work against women, making conception more difficult. Under duress, the body enters survival mode, a state that interferes with ovulation. A 2010 fertility and sterility study showed that women attempting impregnation with high levels of stress-related enzymes were 12 percent less likely to conceive than women with low stress markers.