I sometimes hear from women who are a little older but who still want to conceive. Many of these women wonder if their eggs are going to be compromised because of their age. I heard from someone who said: “I am 43 years old and I’ve just remarried. My husband is a little younger and he deserves to have children. I have two grown boys. I would like to conceive within the next six months. I would like a girl this time. But, one of my coworkers told me that it is going to be hard for me to conceive a girl because my eggs do not live for very long at this point. She says that the eggs of young women have a much longer life span. Is this true? Will I be unable to get pregnant with a girl baby?” I didn’t think that this was impossible situation, although it may have been a challenging one. I will explain this more below.
There Is Evidence That Older Women Have A Harder Time Conceiving, But It’s Not Impossible: It’s a pretty well known fact that it can take longer to successfully conceive successfully for a woman who is over 40. This is not true for a man. Older men often have no problems conceiving while the same is not true for women. Here is why. When a boy reaches maturity, he continues to produce sperm over his lifetime. He is able to produce new sperm time and time again. But, a woman is born with all of the eggs that she is ever going to have. She does not produce more. And, unlike a man, she does not produce new ones. So, her eggs age and there are only so many of them. This means her eggs decline in both quality and quantity as she ages.
And yes, the longevity of these eggs can also be affected, meaning that they could live for less time than an egg released when you were younger. The older eggs are also more likely to have abnormalities. And, as hormones decline, women can ovulate less regularly, making it even more difficult to conceive. It is said that after age 35, a woman’s fertility begins to decrease markedly. Some women over 40 seek the help of a fertility specialist in order to become pregnant.
With that said, that doesn’t mean that older women can not get pregnant on their own. Many of them do. You can use an ovulation predictor to help you determine when you are ovulating so you can make the most of every opportunity. Getting a specific gender is also a bit more tricky as you age because your fertility window might be a moving target and you may have less time to work with in that same window. But that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. This woman wanted a girl baby. So she needed to conceive a bit before ovulation. And while her egg might have lived for a shorter period of time than it might have ten years ago, all eggs have a limited life span. That’s why you need to also focus on other things besides timing. Using shallow penetration and having an acidic PH are both ways that you can increase your chances of a girl baby, regardless of your egg’s longevity.
So to answer the question posed, it is believed that older women’s eggs are not as high in quality or quantity, which can mean a decreased life span. But this doesn’t necessarily apply to every egg on every month for every woman. I didn’t want this woman to be discouraged about this because plenty of women conceive the gender of their choice at any age. And there was no harm in trying and then taking action if it was needed. But she would not know that until she tried.
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