"What a trouper!" exclaimed the Express when Des O'Connor said he was to be a father at 72. The applause he met echoed that for many men - from Gordon Brown to David Jason - who have had children late and contrasts with the charges of selfishness hurled at Patricia Rashbrook when, in May, she gave birth aged 62. Late motherhood, it seems, retains an uneasy resonance, but research presented yesterday shows that not all the facts support this.
A big concern has always been that older mothers will struggle to cope with the demands of rearing young children. This is less discussed in relation to older fathers, showing that society still views parenting in terms of gender, although that does not in itself render the point unimportant. But a new study from South Carolina university finds that women who through IVF give birth after 50 are no more likely to show signs of stress or other difficulties with coping physically or mentally than are those in their 30s or 40s.
Other age-related risks are less easily dismissed, but they require that people are properly informed about the risks of late parenthood, not denied a choice. Conditions such as Down's Syndrome are more common among the children of older women. It is true that even if a 50-year-old mother can expect her offspring to be healthy, they are likely to lose their mother relatively early in life. Yet there is no principled difference between the sexes here. Recent evidence suggests that autism is more likely when a child's father is older, while shorter male life-expectancy makes early bereavement an even greater risk. Rightly, however, late fatherhood is seen as a valid choice, the risks being set against the value of greater maturity and, frequently, greater financial security. The moral logic does not change for mothers simply because their having children may require medical intervention. Child welfare has to be paramount, but from the vantage point of an individual born through IVF, the question is not whether it would have been better to be born to younger parents, but whether it is better to be born at all. Even if having older parents poses problems, it hardly stops life being worth living.
As technologies such as egg freezing take hold, there will be more older mothers. For the NHS, the IVF cut-off age - 39 in much of the country - will become indefensible, even if age will remain one factor in targeting resources where they will work best. For society, it is time to stop decrying women for having children late and start respecting the choices they make.
