Irish presenter and author Amanda Byram welcomed her second child with her husband in February last year at the age of 51. In an article for You magazine in May, Byram responded to online criticism that she was “selfish” to have a child when older. She became a mum later in life “not by design” she wrote, “but by the twists and turns of circumstance. Meeting my husband later, the long road of IVF, and then Covid halting everything ... it all meant that my babies arrived when I was 49 and 51.”
Many women navigating career, relationships and a biological clock will relate. Actor Sienna Miller, now 43, revealed her third pregnancy in December on the red carpet at Britain’s Fashion Awards, her bump accentuated in a white tulle see-through gown. “Gendered, misogynistic and antifeminist” is how she described some commentary about becoming an older mother to Elle magazine in May 2022, before the birth of her second child at the age of 41.
“If your body is capable of it, have the baby. Have a wonderful baby. And by the way, I’m a better mother now, and it’s a much more grounded experience. Have all the babies at any time you want to have the babies,” she told Elle. Biology is “incredibly cruel on women”, and she decided to freeze some eggs at age 40, she said. “No one has anything to say about ... Al Pacino and Robert De Niro having kids in their 80s. Forget about your age! It’s irrelevant. It’s absolutely irrelevant.”
Motherhood in Ireland is changing. More women than ever here are giving birth in their 40s. Pregnancy at this age would once have raised an eyebrow, but not any more. “Mammy’s favourite mistake”, a “surprise”, a “happy accident” – the children of older mothers of decades past will be familiar with being teased as outliers. For an increasing number of parents now however, having a child when they are older is no accident.
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Families have more choice now about what and when – if at all. Better contraception, better education and career opportunities for women and advances in fertility treatment mean motherhood can and is happening later. But barriers to parenthood are part of this shift too. The cost of living, housing and childcare mean some are having to delay children until they are better set up.
Professor Fergal Malone, master of the Rotunda from 2016 to 2022, has seen the shift to older motherhood play out in Ireland’s – and one of Europe’s – busiest maternity hospitals. When he began working there in 2005, only three per cent of women attending were over 40. Now it’s almost one in 10.
“Last year, over 40 per cent of the [patient] population in the Rotunda was over 35, so it’s huge. It’s tripled in 20 years,” he says.
The age of motherhood has been slowly edging up. In 2024, the average age of a mother giving birth was 33.3. In 1993, it was 29.8. The average age of first-time mothers now is just shy of 32. This seems young enough, but it’s an increase of 1.2 years over the past decade, and 3.2 years since 2004. In 1973, the average age of a woman giving birth for the first time was just 25.
Perhaps more striking has been a dramatic rise in the number of women in their 40s giving birth. In 2023, about 9 per cent of all babies born in Ireland were to mothers aged 40 and over, up 21.5 per cent since 2012. More than 400 of those women were aged 45 or older, an increase of 80 per cent since 2013, according to the Central Statistics Office.
Not so long ago, news of pregnancy post-40 was met with caution – this can’t have been planned, and what about the risks? Such babies now, however, are often far from a “surprise”.
“You do see a small number of people, 42, 43, 44, 45, spontaneously and unintentionally pregnant, but by and large, the majority of people over 40 are deliberately and intentionally pregnant and mostly with the assistance of fertility therapy,” says Malone. “We are seeing more and more women starting at 40.”
Why wait?
So why are women in Ireland having children at an older age, and why does it matter?
“When people wait until they are older to have their first child, they will have fewer kids. But the trend in general is to have fewer kids, because it’s hard to afford more,” says Dr Dora Tuda, research officer at the ESRI.
Irish women share their stories of motherhood after 40: ‘I knew if I didn’t try, I would have regrets’
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Overall birth rates in Ireland are falling, which will have significant implications for the economy in the future as the population ages. In the decade to 2023, there was a drop of more than 20 per cent in the number of babies born in Ireland. But younger people are being pummelled by cost of living and housing pressures, and with inadequate and expensive childcare options, are unlikely to be motivated to have children younger, and have more of them, for the sake of their country.
Average monthly rent nationally now exceeds €2,000. Many want the security of their own home before having children, but someone earning the national median salary of €43,221 would be unable to afford a starter home in any county in Ireland under current lending rules. Paying for food, housing and living expenses mostly requires two incomes. Yet, childcare fees for parents going out to work averaged €930 a month nationally in 2022. This is higher for children under two. Recent research by Laya Life put the average cost of raising a child to age 21 at €15,324.20 a year – an increase of 39 per cent in the last 10 years.
[ Rise in older mothers cited as factor behind Ireland’s high Caesarean ratesOpens in new window ]
Being a parent for some looks like having time to see your child during the week, to help with homework sometimes, to have time to bring them to the dentist or the doctor, and to be able to pay for some after-school hobbies, or take a family holiday together. But it’s hard for people to imagine having the time or money for this life without more stability in their career, their finances and housing.
Delayed parenting and fewer children has implications for society as a whole. “If you are not having kids, then our workforce will be shrinking, then less people will be paying tax which means the Government will have more trouble paying out pensions to those retiring,” says Tuda.
Indeed, Ireland’s “total period fertility rate” was 1.5 in 2024 – a level of 2.1 is considered necessary for the population to replace itself in the long run. In 2014, it was 1.9. In 1973, it was 3.7.
Changing lives of women
Other factors are contributing to older motherhood too. Ireland has the highest share of tertiary educated women in Europe – 62 per cent, against the European average of 48 per cent for women. Having studied hard, competed for a job in a field they love and worked their way up the ladder, the career penalty for having a child is especially and uniquely brutal for women.
“Women in Ireland are 28 per cent less likely to be employed compared to men after having their first child,” says Tuda. This is about the European average, but in Ireland, this penalty increases over time. Ten years later, a woman in Ireland is almost half as likely to be employed compared to a man.
“In families with kids, men are not likely to become unemployed, they are less likely to reduce their hours than women. Women change their hours or stay home,” says Tuda. The penalty for women carries into the older years, too – men have a 35 per cent higher pension in retirement than women, she says.
For some women, leaving the workforce is a choice. For others, working and motherhood in Ireland is simply too hard. Childcare and the school calendar is too unworkable, the euphemistically-named “juggle” is just too much. Something has to give, and often it’s the mother.
State maternity benefit of €289 a week – when not topped up by an employer – represents a significant loss of income for six months. “Some families just cannot afford that,” says Tuda. Evidence from other countries shows equalising parental leave between parents and adequately paying it helps with child rearing and the gender wage gap.
When having a child can have such a catastrophic effect on your career and financial wellbeing, is it any wonder some women are putting off having them?
Health
Though there was a record high of 408 babies born to women aged 45 years and above in 2023, becoming a mother when older is not without challenge.
Advances in fertility treatment have made becoming a mother when older more possible than ever, especially for those with resources to pay for it, but “fertility therapy is not a panacea,” says Malone. “It fails for a large proportion of women, especially women over 40. If you can have your babies earlier, do have your babies earlier. Your fertility is generally higher, your complication rates for mother and baby are lower.”
Some older women will get pregnant with fertility treatment, but there are no statistics for the much larger number of women who tried to get pregnant and did not, or didn’t have the money to pay for treatment, he says.
[ Rise in births to mothers over 40: drivers, risks and mitigationOpens in new window ]
The HSE will fund just one round of IVF to those experiencing infertility aged up to 41, but not over. Same-sex couples are not eligible. A round can cost between €4,000 and €7,000 privately.
“There are large numbers of women who find themselves at 40 who can’t get pregnant and don’t have the option of availing of fertility therapy, so we would be doing a disservice if we just quoted the figures from an IVF clinic saying 30 or 40 per cent of our patients doing IVF conceived – there is a much larger number who don’t get that far,” says Malone.
For a 40-year-old woman who does conceive using her own egg rather than a donor, there is about a one in 50 chance the pregnancy will have a genetic condition like Down syndrome, says Malone. For a 20-year-old, that risk is only one in 1,000.
A non-invasive blood test as early as nine weeks, while not diagnostic, is a “very strong indicator” of the probability of certain genetic conditions, he says. A more invasive amniocentesis will give a definitive result, and then a couple has a choice to continue with the pregnancy or not, he says. “It’s a rare patient over 40 who I see pregnant who does not avail of one of those screening tests,” he says. The “vast majority” get a reassuring result on the blood test, he adds, providing huge comfort to women who can relax and enjoy their pregnancy.
Being a younger mother doesn’t always equate to being “healthier”, however.
“Well over half of our patients are now overweight or obese. That is a much better predictor for how complicated the pregnancy and birth will be than age,” Malone says, citing hypertension, diabetes, pre-eclampsia and traumatic birth among risks. “A fit healthy 40-year-old will have a much more straightforward pregnancy and delivery than an obese, unhealthy 30-year-old. Older mothers, especially those over 40, by and large the vast majority are deliberately and intentionally pregnant and therefore have mostly put in place the steps to optimise their health.”
Trinity College Dublin’s MAMMI study, tracking 3,000 first-time mothers, highlighted the burden of physical and mental health problems experienced by mothers of all ages post-partum, says Dr Déirdre Daly, professor of midwifery there. For some women, these issues resolve, for others they persist or get worse.
“Some women are lucky, particularly those who are a bit older. They can have more access to finance, or they are educated, they have had a career and are fairly confident in themselves and this gives them the ability to seek help,” she says. “If you have a supportive partner, family and community, ‘the village’ they talk about, you’ll be grand. But maybe you don’t have those resources or levels of support when you are younger.”
