Pregnant women over 35 years old, have issues and
concerns to which healthcare providers must pay attention
when in professional contact with these women. In order to
meet the needs of older pregnant women, healthcare
providers themselves, need more information concerning the
experiences of older women during pregnancy, in order to
increase their understanding and knowledge of age-related
pregnancy risks. Healthcare providers should remember that
pregnancy can evoke a broad range of feelings in women of
advanced maternal age, which can vary from happiness to
anxiety.
This review illustrates the importance of the nature of
available information, and how it is given to older pregnant
women. Older pregnant women have a desire for knowledge
and they are active information seekers. Information given
by healthcare providers is, therefore, important for older
pregnant women during their process of becoming mothers.
It is especially important that each woman of AMA should
be treated as an individual, and not simply as a member of a
certain group. Being aware of the diverse experiences of
older pregnant women can help healthcare providers to
understand better the needs of these women. Such awareness
can also help health care providers to realize that it is
important to offer AMA women not only risk-oriented
information, but favourable information concerning later
childbearing as well. In order to be a successful healthcare
provider, they should consider their own, personal and
individual way of approaching older pregnant women, as
well as being up-to-date and well informed of all the risks
related to AMA.
More studies, involving larger samples are needed in
order to define the actual risks during pregnancy, and the age
to which the term “advanced maternal age” could properly
be used. It has been shown that there is an inconsistency in
the literature between the definition of, and the risk
assessment of, the older pregnant woman [26]. In addition,
healthcare providers' perceptions and experiences of caring
for women of AMA, would also be an invaluable resource if
it were to be documented. Healthcare providers would then
be able to find out how other members of their profession
have managed the wide range of situations that occur when
in contact with older pregnant women.