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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

There is no "serious risk" with pregnancy until at least 40 or older unless there are unrelated health issues. There is a small increase in risk and decrease in fertility through the mid 30's but 35 is an extremely young age to consider risky.

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The fecundity of women decreases gradually but significantly beginning approximately at age 32 years and decreases more rapidly after age 37 years [1]. A woman over 35 is nearly 2.5 times more likely than a younger woman to have a stillbirth [2].

[1] https://www.asrm.org/globalassets/asrm/asrm-content/news-and...

[2] https://yourfertility.org.au/for-women/age/

You are not contradicting the post you replied to because you're taking about increases in risk and the parent is talking about absolute risk. The base rate matters; a 2.5x increase in stillbirth probability may not be persuasive if the base rate is low.

(I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you aren't convincing.)

You're right as far as the post I replied to is talking about mortal health risk to mother or child, which doesn't seem to be a huge issue at 35. I was also thinking about the risk of not being able to have kids at all, or having less serious issues like Downs which is pushing 1% of live births before age 40 (https://www.aafp.org/afp/2000/0815/p825.html).

Question : why do doctors refer to a first pregnancy at 35 years of age for the woman, as a "geriatric pregnancy"?

Health risks are not the only issue with age. The older you are as a parent, the more difficulty you have in relating to your children and communicating with them.

The context in which I was replying was clearly related to health risks.

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