I absolutely agree, maternal age is not discussed often enough, there are a number of risks that go up significantly when you wait until later to have children,

I absolutely agree, maternal age is not discussed often enough, there are a number of risks that go up significantly when you wait until later to have children, for both men and women. A mother at age 20 has a 1 in 1,441 of having a baby with a Down Syndrome, whereas the odds are 1 in 84 at 40 years of age. Even at age 35 there's a 1 in 338 chance of a woman giving birth to a baby with Down Syndrome which is an order of magnitude higher than a woman at age 20 has, and that's just one defect! There are a whole host of defects including Autism that are strongly associated with the mother's age. Similarly a woman who has a baby at 40 has a 5.5% chance of dying before that child's 18th birthday, at 20 the odds of dying before your child reaches adulthood is only 0.6%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_maternal_age#Risk_of_birth_defects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_maternal_age#Risk_of_...