Age of first-time mothers in 2009:
All ages: 1,660,231
Under 15: 4,920
15: 15,026
16: 35,086
17: 61,931
18: 94,841
19: 123,616
20-24: 493,851
25-29: 426,362
30-34: 272,219
35-39: 106,971
40-44: 23,330
45-49: 1,906
50-54: 172
SOURCE: National Vital Statistics
Women are blowing out more birthday candles than previous generations before celebrating their first Mother’s Day.
In the United States, the average age of women giving birth for the first time continued rising steadily from 21.4 years in 1970 to 25.1 in 2008, according to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Since 1990, birth rates have risen for all women ages 30 and older. The rate increases have been sharpest for women in the oldest age groups — 47 percent for women ages 35-39 and 80 percent for women ages 40-44, the study showed.
One explanation of the change in average age of first-time mothers is that the proportion of first births to women 35 and older has increased nearly eight times since 1970, the researchers say. In 1970, 1 percent of births were to women 35 and over, while that percentage rose to 8 in 2006, according to the NCHS report. T.J. Mathews, a demographer with the NCHS, which is part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the increase “a dramatic transition.”
Despite the rise, the United States still has the youngest age of first-time mothers in the developed countries studied. In Britain, Switzerland and other nations, the average woman has her first baby at nearly 30 years of age.
There are numerous financial and lifestyle reasons why women are choosing to have children later in life, sometimes for the first time, said Dr. Gregory Siewny, an physician at Hilltop OBGYN at Atrium Medical Center.
He said the tumultuous economy is delaying motherhood as is the higher percentage of women attending college, then paying off substantial student loans, getting married later, making their careers a priority, and, because of advancements in medicine, being less concerned about their biological clocks ticking.
Thirty-five years old no longer is the glass ceiling for low-risk pregnancy, he said.
“It’s just amazing how things have changed,” said Dr. Siewny, who’s celebrating his 30th year in practice. He recently delivered babies to women who are 42, 43 and 48 years old.
Dr. Siewny’s reasons for delayed motherhood line up perfectly with Todd and Jill Rogers — both 32 — who recently became parents for the first time. Before trying to become parents, the Middletown couple wanted to earn their master’s degrees and establish their careers.
Priorities in 2012 aren’t the same as those in 1972.
“We wanted to be financially secure,” said Jill Rogers, who teaches at Highview Sixth-Grade Center.
A Hamilton woman became a first-time mother when she was 35 — nearly 20 years ago.
Sharon DeVault, 55, married Homer DeVault, 71, in 1991, and she knew her biological “clock was ticking,” she said with a laugh. Four months after they were married, she became pregnant with her first child, while her husband has children from a previous marriage.
Her son, Michael, will turn 20 in September.
She said today’s women are concentrating on their education and careers before thinking about children. Generations before, she said, a woman’s priorities were just the opposite.
“You went to school, got married and started a family,” she said. “It was just that simple. It’s not like that today, especially since both people are working.”
It was a similar story for the Rogers family.
Todd Rogers has a master’s degree and is an electrical engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He said: “We saw no reason not to wait.”
Now that her career is established, Jill, who has taught for 11 years, said she was “ready to be a mom.”
They became parents when Ethan Rogers was born at 6:45 a.m. May 7 — following 23 hours of labor — at Atrium Medical Center.
This will be Jill’s first Mother’s Day as a mother, and since it falls on May 13 — and 13 is her lucky number — it will be “even extra special,” she said.
When asked if their lives have changed the last three years — when they went from single to married to parents — they cracked large smiles.
“It’s so wonderful even when we don’t get much sleep,” she said.
Todd looked down at his son and added: “He’s God’s little miracle, I guess.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.
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