Pros and cons of getting pregnant in your 20s

Most experts will say that there is no right time to start a family. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to getting pregnant and giving birth at different ages. When you become pregnant in your 20s, you will have more energy to run around and care for your child, but you will lack a source of income and personal experience to guide you.

The advantages of getting pregnant in your 20s

Your 20s are the best decade for getting pregnant and having a baby. Here are a few reasons:

Optimal egg quality

Like any other woman, you are born with all the eggs you will have, about 1 to 2 million eggs. At puberty, your egg count is around 300,000 to 500,000, but your ovaries only release about 300 eggs during your reproductive years.

As you age, your ovaries age along with the rest of your body, and the quality of your eggs slowly declines. That is why when compared to the eggs of younger women, the eggs of older women are more likely to have genetic disorders that cause Down syndrome and other birth defects.

Less risk of pregnancy complications

Pregnancy is physically easier for women in their 20s because of the lower risk of health complications such as high blood pressure and diabetes. You are also less likely to develop uterine problems such as uterine fibroids, which often become more problematic over time.

The risk of miscarriage is also much smaller, at about 10 percent for women in their 20s, 12 percent for women in their early 30s, and 18 percent for women in their middle to late 30s. The risk of miscarriage jumps to about 34 percent for women in their early 40s, and 53 percent after reaching age 45.

Young women are less likely to deliver premature babies or babies with low birth weight when compared to women over the age of 35. In terms of fertility, the differences in fertility in women in their early and late 20s are insignificant.

Good physical endurance

Once the baby is born, as a mother in her 20s, you tend to have the resistance to wake up with your baby a few times a night and still be able to move on the next day. Apart from your physical strengths, here is another positive point: You are more flexible in your 20s, which is good for marriage and parenting.

Lack of getting pregnant in your 20s

Some of the deficiencies you may experience in your 20s include:

Not ready to be a parent

Many couples in their 20s are, simply put, not ready to become parents. Raising children is emotionally and physically taxing, and many parents — especially young ones — are not fully prepared for the sacrifice and patience it takes.

A tenuous husband and wife relationship

Ideally, partners support each other in this transition and become closer to each other, but many partners become distant and alien from each other, which can seriously damage a marriage. Young mothers tend to feel stressed and overwhelmed by babies, so the father may feel neglected by his wife.

It's more difficult to build a professional career

In your 20s, you may still be looking for a career path and building yourself up professionally. If you take that time to have a baby, it may be difficult to get back into your career. Although a woman returns to work immediately after having a baby, she will be statistically lower in income than her childless peers.

Financial conditions are not optimal

In addition, having children in their 20s may not be financially optimal. Generally, young couples have just started a career, so that the financial condition is not yet stable, as they are in their 30s and beyond.

Chances of successful pregnancy in your 20s

In your 20s, the statistics are in your favor. As a healthy woman in your 20s, you have a 33 percent chance of getting pregnant in each cycle if you have sex before ovulation. At 30, your chances are about 20 percent each cycle.

Few women aged 20 have problems with fertility, while 2/3 of women over the age of 40 have fertility problems. A woman aged 20 years has only a 6 percent chance of not being able to become pregnant, while a woman aged 40 years has a 64 percent chance of not being able to become pregnant.

Another risk, at age 20, is one in 2,000. This risk jumps to one in 900 when you are 30, and one in 100 when you reach 40.

Things to do if you don't want to get pregnant in your 20s

If you want to have children but are not ready, you might consider freezing your eggs.

Although the chances of a healthy pregnancy decline in your late 30s and 40s, you can take advantage of reproductive technologies. Some women "save" eggs at a young age, in preparation if they have difficulty getting pregnant as they get older.

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