Two articles over the past five days in both the Toronto Sun and National Post featuring comments by psychologist Judith Daniluk of the University of British Columbia who presented at the CFAS conference in Vancouver this month on the topic of women delaying childbirth due to misinformation and false expectations.
Information in the media of older celebrity parents conceiving, uninformed family physicians and other misconceptions are leading to exaggerated beliefs and unrealistic expectations about conceiving later in life much later than is considered ideal according to Daniluk.
Daniluk states that it’s not only science and education that are contributing to these problems but the social structures that make it difficult for younger, more fertile, women to balance education, careers and family.
The survey conducted in her research is still active.
At the clinic over the past few months we’ve had a number of women ask about celebrities such as Celine Dion & Kelly Preston who recently have come public with their pregnancies much later in life. Whether they conceived through IVF with their own eggs or donor eggs is a matter of opinion but certainly disclosure hasn’t been properly addressed by the media and this likely contributes to some of the comments or perceptions in these articles.
What are your thoughts? Biased or are perceptions accurately portrayed in this research?
