So, what else are men to blame for?

[Greenday]

I think at this point, you are looking for answers that cannot be given.

Why are human carbon based and not nitrogen based?
Why don't we have six toes over five?
Why do brown eyes have to be dominant over blue eyes?

The answer is because that's just the way it is and it has nothing to do with our social behavior. These are things beyond our control at this point. A 20 year old's body is in better shape than a 40 year old's. It is better equipped at the time to deal with the stress of carrying a baby (Or two or three). Clearly, the female body is going to favor a process that involves not killing the mother as that is bad for reproductive success.

[anakhouri]

Childbirth is hard on the female body. Someone older is going to have a much more difficult time and more complications than a woman of 25 or 30. Better to just shut it down, then. Making the baby isn't nearly as hard as birthing it, so men are off the hook there.

[HYHYBT]

Childbirth is hard on the female body. Someone older is going to have a much more difficult time and more complications than a woman of 25 or 30. Better to just shut it down, then. Making the baby isn't nearly as hard as birthing it, so men are off the hook there.

Particularly important when you throw a few other things in. Humans generally only have one baby per pregnancy and take many years to reach adulthood. As with other species, the younger the children are when the mother dies, the worse their own chances. So it makes sense to stop the risk involved in pregnancy and childbirth well before the end of her natural lifespan.

[siead_lietrathua]

Childbirth is hard on the female body. Someone older is going to have a much more difficult time and more complications than a woman of 25 or 30. Better to just shut it down, then. Making the baby isn't nearly as hard as birthing it, so men are off the hook there.

this exactly. it's easy enough for an 80 year old women's hips to crack irreparably by just falling. carrying a child, let alone giving birth, could be fatal.
hell pregnancy/ childbirth is still a leading cause of death in young women world wide (granted, mostly in 3rd world countries)

[Ladeeda]

This entire "study" is based on speculation, same as any and all evolutionary psychology. It takes what we know now and makes up stuff to fit in with the past.

It's the same logic that makes Jurassic Park and every zombie movie work. Knowledge plus BS. Taking it seriously just indicates a seriously lack of sense, like anyone who gets up in arms over the physics of Star Wars.

It's crap that gives someone with enough pizzazz to sell it a paycheck. Nothing more or less. There's no proof or evidence, and no experiment that could provide the proof, so scientifically speaking it's just a lot of chatter out the ass.

[anakhouri]

Mentioned this to my husband last night as he is a scientist, and he made the very good point that in caveman times almost everyone was dead by 40 or so; it's only recently people began living to 70-80 years of age. So the female body only needed to make enough eggs to last until age 40 or 45. Our bodies still function they way they did back when we were hunting mammoths.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Pretty much that ^.

It also ignores that many of our closest genetic matches in the animal kingdoms do the same thing. I think it makes for a funny headline, but thinking about it in a scientific framework there are a lot of reasons.

Another big one is the real risk of complication as we age. So evolutionarily speaking, a mother that didn't stop, died because of age based complication and caused her offspring to be less fit would not be selected over the woman who did stop and fully supported hers. Seriously, if you even just look at the skeleton of a 40 year old man OR woman, it makes a lot of sense because there is serious wear. Coincidentally, that is the same logic that gets applied to explain sexual antagonism, or why women on average desire less sex and more stable partners. The fitness of a 50 year old woman would get severely compromised by continuing to have children to the point of compromising fitness of the woman and/or the kids.

The article falls under the banner of silly science that sells clicks. It's not great science, but it's great water cooler talk.

[50missioncap]

Do you think a women should freeze her eggs when young, in case she does decide to have kids in her thirties-forties but is not ready yet?

[Skunkle]

Anakhouri beat me to it. "Men are attracted to younger females"? Sure, in a sense... but what 'younger' means is relative. 600 years ago, a nice age for a woman to marry and start having kids was 12. That age has increased over time due to a cross between changing societal norms and longer lifespans, with each playing off/feeding off the other.

[s_stabeler]

Do you think a women should freeze her eggs when young, in case she does decide to have kids in her thirties-forties but is not ready yet?

no; the primary cause of Menopause isn't the eggs themselves ( which are more or less unaffected by age) but the woman's body- a 50 yearold is going to havwe far more complications than a 20-year old.

[Andara Bledin]

no; the primary cause of Menopause isn't the eggs themselves ( which are more or less unaffected by age) but the woman's body- a 50 yearold is going to havwe far more complications than a 20-year old.

This answer isn't actually related to the question asked.

If a woman believes that she is not ready to have kids in her 20's and thinks that she will want to have them when in her late 30's or 40's (which is not unreasonable in this era), then having her own eggs frozen for later fertilization is a positive course of action. Delaying pregnancy is actually a common reason given for a person to choose such a course.

We know that sperm can be frozen for decades and remain viable, so it's likely that it will develop that eggs will have a similar "shelf life" if stored properly. However, the technology is still new enough that the answer is not well known, but the time they can remain stored and remain viable is at least a decade.

It's also psychologically helpful for women who have "ticking clock" syndrome. They can move forward with their lives despite not being in a position to have a child at that point with the knowledge that when they're ready, there won't be that barrier.

The problem now is that the cost is quite prohibitive and the other side of the procedure is still new compared to the freezing side.

[s_stabeler]

Um, the issue IS relevant. If it's excessiely rsiky for a woman to have kids post-menopause, then just beacuse the eggs ahve been stored will not reduce that risk. If the woman is still fertile, thye don't actually need to sue the stored eggs.

which is why I make one exception: certain medical treatments (for Ovarian cancer, amongst other thigns) can cause infertility. in THAT case, then I can see the use of storing eggs. But otherwise? I can't see how the extra risk of complications is worth it.

[Andara Bledin]

Um, the issue IS relevant. If it's excessiely rsiky for a woman to have kids post-menopause, then just beacuse the eggs ahve been stored will not reduce that risk. If the woman is still fertile, thye don't actually need to sue the stored eggs.

which is why I make one exception: certain medical treatments (for Ovarian cancer, amongst other thigns) can cause infertility. in THAT case, then I can see the use of storing eggs. But otherwise? I can't see how the extra risk of complications is worth it.

So much bad and missing information here.

First, all other factors being equal, it is no more dangerous for a woman post-menopause to have a baby than it is for a woman under 32.

Second, fertility and the health of the eggs are separate issues. If a woman chooses to wait until she's 40 to have a child, it is preferable she use stored eggs despite the fact that she will still be fertile. Eggs quality starts to break down in the mid to late 30's. To reduce the chance of birth defects, using eggs stored when the woman was younger is preferable.

Your view is quite myopic and selfish. Just because you don't see a need and don't feel like educating yourself, you assume that there is none.

[s_stabeler]

My view was based on the information I had, which is that it wasn't the health of the eggs which caused the issues in an older mother. If the health of the eggs is in fact the issue, then I don't have a problem with frozen eggs. So kindly do NOT assume I am being selfish when in fact my opinion was based on the information I had.

[Andara Bledin]

While I grant that the discussion didn't really touch on what causes issues in older women giving birth (the answer to which seems to be that the issues themselves only exist in so much as older people have had more time to develop potentially debilitating conditions and proper medical care covers most issues), the health of the eggs based on their age was discussed on page 2.

Everybody that took the time to read the thread had that information.

As an addendum, there is an article on Wikipedia that shows the effects of advanced maternal age on rates of birth defects. In the five years it takes a woman (or her eggs, rather) to go from 35 to 40, the chances of the child having birth defects increase four-fold (from 1:400 to 1:100). And from 30 to 35, it more than doubles (from 1:1000 to 1:400).