NEW MUMS aged 45 and over have soared in number in the past few months – nearly half as many again as last year, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).
And numbers of babies born to women aged 50 and over are now at unprecedented highs.
In the country with one of the oldest average ages for first-time mothers in Europe, where approximately one in five women have their first child in their 40s and three-quarters of females aged 35 do not have kids – even if they want to – babies conceived and live births in mums near the end of their fertile years, or even after these are over, are becoming the 'new normal' in Spain.
Spanish television presenter Toñi Moreno will be 49 in less than a month's time, and she had her daughter, Lola, in January last year - meaning she would have conceived her just weeks short of her 47th birthday (photo: Gtres)
Stigma surrounding older new parents is almost non-existent, and with job stability and home ownership gradually coming later and later in the lives of men and women alike, the birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe and parenthood tends to be a decision made at the last minute before running out of time.
Babies born to women 50 or over total 64 in three months
Over the first three months of 2021, a total of 682 babies were born to mothers aged 45 to 49 inclusive – still a leap on the same months of 2016, when the total was 577 – and, during exactly the same quarter of 2022, mums of this age group had 910 babies.
Back in 2016, infants born to women aged 50 and over totalled just 27, and the highest on record since then has been 52, but from January to March 2022 inclusive, a total of 64 women aged 50 or over had a baby.
In total, therefore, women aged over 44, with no upper age limit, brought 974 new humans into Spanish society in the first quarter of this year.
The figures, for both age groups separately and together, are the highest ever seen, according to INE data, and the increase is substantial: A jump of 42.8% on the same three months of 2021.
Births were up across all ages in the first quarter of 2022, in fact, says the INE.
British model Naomi Campbell had her first child, a girl, in January 2021…just days before her 51st birthday. Here she is a year later (photo: J. M. Haedrich/SIPA/Cordon Press via El País)
From January 1 to March 31, a total of 79,885 babies were born, being an increase of 2,676 on the same period last year.
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