Accidental Pregnancies in Your 40s Are Common. Let’s Talk About Why

I recently read an article in The Atlantic that kind of altered my brain chemistry — and by “altered my brain chemistry”, I really just mean it pointed out something I haven’t considered about reproductive health despite literally thinking about reproduction like it’s my job (because it kind of is my job as a journalist who covers the topic).

The article is about accidental pregnancies after 40, which are surprisingly common (like, around one in three pregnancies among women over 40 are unplanned, according to data from a few years ago).

That’s not to say fertility doesn’t decline with age. It does. We do lose eggs as we get older; that’s a scientific fact. But what we need to remember is this: Your fertility doesn’t just completely leave the chat when you turn 35, as narratives around “advanced maternal age” (a terrible term, as we’ve discussed) might suggest. 

The root of accidental pregnancies after 40, as this article touches on, seems to be more about approach and lifestyle. People may lower their guard where pregnancy prevention is concerned. They experience symptoms of perimenopause and assume “hey, I’m in the clear — I won’t get pregnant now” and maybe they stop really paying attention to contraception.

We also are still very much learning about the realities of perimenopause and menopause — to the point that we really never spoke publicly about these topics up until very recently, and as a result, people don’t really know what’s happening in our bodies. They also may not know that perimenopause affects, but doesn't completely wipe out, your fertility. It's not until you've reached menopause, which is clinically defined as one year without a period, that your ability to get pregnant is gone, according to Mayo Clinic materials. You should use birth control until then if you want to avoid pregnancy.

And that’s what it all comes down to: We don’t have the information about how to identify perimenopause and menopause, and we don’t have the information of how our fertility fares in those life stages…so we’re vulnerable to loss of reproductive control.

And then, we don’t have a sense of what is truly happening in our bodies, so maybe we miss a few periods or gain a few pounds and think “oh, this is just perimenopause changing my body”, not realizing you’re actually pregnant until you’re far along.

The bottom line? We need more information about our bodies. And this is yet another example of that.