Anne Hathaway broke one of society’s most stubborn taboos.
At 43, the Oscar winner is expecting her third child with husband Adam Shulman, and her announcement has reignited the age-old debate: When, exactly, is a woman “too old” to be a mother?
Hathaway Share pregnancy on Instagram With a video that has received over 18 million likes, it has sparked a new conversation about fertility, aging and the pressure women still feel to adhere to age-old deadlines.
And “The Devil Wears Prada 2” and “Odyssey” star is far from alone.
Anne Hathaway recently announced that she is pregnant with her third child at the age of 43. Instagram/anyhathway
a cdc report found The birth rate among women age 30 and older has increased from 1990 to 2023 – and the birth rate among women over 40 recently exceeded teen pregnancy for the first time.
Amplified by the reach of fame, the celebrity baby boom is challenging decades of fear and judgment around advanced maternal age. Look no further than Hathaway’s video, the comments section has been flooded with women celebrating the reminder that motherhood doesn’t come with an expiration date.
And 43 seems to be a magic number especially among celebrities: Singer and beauty mogul Gwen Stefani, former Team USA soccer player Carli Lloyd and actresses Claire Danes and Sienna Miller all found out they were pregnant at that age.
Miller, who had her first child at 29 and her second at 41, told Glam that being pregnant with her second and third children at 40 was “the best” because she felt more grounded and less scattered. By age 40, she said, “I know who I am. I don’t really care about what anyone else thinks.'”
The Danes described a much more complex reaction.
On Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast, the mother of three “recession” came to mind After it was revealed that she was pregnant with her third child. She also admitted on the “Smartless” podcast that she felt “comical embarrassment”, as if “I had been caught committing adultery beyond that point” and had stepped “outside the parameters”.
Their response reflects the pressure that many women feel when pregnancy occurs after the age of 35. Society’s judgments can become internalized, causing women to question deeply personal choices.
“We don’t judge men who have kids in their 80s,” Miller said. “Why on earth is there any kind of narrative?”
Sienna Miller was also pregnant at the age of 43. For the first time, births to women over 40 exceeded teen pregnancies, the CDC reports. Instagram/cinenathing/
Pregnant at 43: Possible, but… Complicated
So is 43 the new 35? We spoke to several fertility experts and the consensus was this: Getting pregnant at 40 isn’t impossible.
“We’re definitely seeing a trend in women having children at older ages,” said Dr. Joshua Klein, a reproductive endocrinologist and chief clinical officer. increase fertilityTold the Post.
But the journey is not as simple as a flashy social media announcement might make it appear.
For one, reproductive aging is real. Advanced maternal age pregnancy – the updated term for the archaic “geriatric pregnancy”, FYI – refers to pregnancy at age 35 and older, when risks such as miscarriage, chromosomal abnormalities and pregnancy complications begin to increase.
Egg quantity and quality also decline over time, with fertility declining rapidly in the mid-30s and becoming a major challenge for many women in their late 30s and 40s. At ages 43 and older, the monthly chance of pregnancy is generally less than 5%, According to the American Society for American Medicine.
Claire Danes admitted that she felt a “weird embarrassment” when she became pregnant at the age of 43, as if “I had been caught committing adultery beyond that point” and stepped “outside the parameters”. wireimage
Celebrity pregnancy after 40 doesn’t erase those realities.
They really highlight two inescapable truths: Many people with advanced maternal age use fertility treatments or frozen eggs to conceive and there are always exceptions in the statistics.
“If the monthly chance of conceiving is 5%, one can—and will!—absolutely be successful,” said Klein, an OB-GYN and assistant professor of reproductive sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
But celebrity pregnancy announcements often leave out the full story of how those pregnancies came about.
“Hope is important,” Klein said. “Accurate information is equally important.”
“We are seeing a trend in women having children at older ages,” Dr. Joshua Klein, MD, FACOG, told the Post. (Pictured: Soccer player Carli Lloyd) Lev Radin/Shutterstock
Candid Conception: Presenting an Honest Picture of Fertility
Hathaway has been open about her own fertility struggles, including a miscarriage before the birth of her first child in 2015.
Danes revealed that she went through two rounds of IVF before giving birth to her second child at the age of 39, a pregnancy she described as “hard-earned”.
Similarly, Lloyd opened up about her fertility and IVF struggles while announcing her second pregnancy in 2024. an unsafe instagram caption And An op-ed for women’s healthAdmitting that she once struggled with the idea of IVF.
“I struggled a lot to get to this point,” Lloyd wrote. “As a woman, I naturally wanted to get pregnant because our bodies are supposed to be capable of it. I felt like my body let me down. But at that moment I was ready to take the next step.”
Time to stop: Technology is changing fertility
One of the biggest changes for women delaying motherhood is freezing eggs and embryos.
“If an egg or embryo is properly frozen, stored and thawed, time essentially stops,” Dr. zev williamsthe director of the Columbia University Fertility Center told The Post. “It doesn’t age in storage.”
Experts recommend women over 35 to explore advanced reproductive technologies like IVF and egg freezing to have a family later in life. (Natalie Portman, 45, is pregnant with her third child) Getty Images
Miller remembered freezing her eggs, although she was eventually able to conceive naturally.
“I was really fortunate to be able to get pregnant, but doing so in my late 30s gave me existential relief,” she said.
For women who do not freeze eggs or embryos, donated eggs may make pregnancy possible even after menopause.
Technology cannot erase biology. Pregnancy risks, including miscarriage, chromosomal abnormalities, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia, increase with age.
Still, health, lifestyle and medical history all matter.
“43 year old women are still healthy!” Dr. Sheeva TalebianMD, director of third-party reproduction at CCRM Fertility in New York, told the Post. “Many of us have been living healthy lifestyles for years, which has allowed us to successfully conceive.”
Aubrey Plaza is pregnant at the age of 40. getty images
Kaley Cuoco is also 40 and pregnant. John Salangsang/Shutterstock
The risk of developing pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes can be reduced by staying active and in good cardiovascular condition.
“I would prefer a healthy 43-year-old woman to conceive than a 30-year-old woman with multiple medical conditions,” Talebian said.
About 40 Hollywood moms are rewriting the rules
Reproductive science is evolving, but the old “geriatric pregnancy” myth still persists.
an x user Celebrity pregnancy trend criticizedHathaway and actresses Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen are all pregnant at the same time, writing “Elderly pregnancy should not be promoted” in response to a viral post. Keep in mind, Plaza is 41 years old and Olsen is 37 years old.
reaction was quickly met with Strong clapback from another user: “Because God forbid a woman should have a child when her frontal lobe is fully developed and she is financially independent enough to raise a child on her own.”
However, most of the comments on Hathaway’s pregnancy post praised her for pushing back against outdated views of later pregnancies — and showing that the door to motherhood doesn’t automatically close after 35.
“It’s comforting to know that the opportunities for motherhood don’t end in our thirties,” one Instagram user wrote. “Everyone’s timeline is different, and there is still hope, possibility and time ahead.”