Working women should not miss the optimal period for childbearing

Thread Content

There was no intention to have children when I was able to, but once my physical abilities declined and it became difficult to conceive, I sought medical help desperately, hoping to get pregnant soon. Many urban white-collar workers these days are trapped in such a peculiar cycle regarding childbearing. Survey data from cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou show that 24.7% of young and middle-aged women support the idea of having no children even after getting married, and this tendency is more pronounced among those with higher levels of education. Such survey results have worried obstetric and gynecological experts. 　　Current Reality: High child-rearing costs deter people from having children. “It’s not that we don’t want to have children; it’s that we can’t afford to.” Raising children not only costs money but also reduces the quality of life. ”Xiaoyu (a pseudonym) is a department manager at a foreign pharmaceutical company. Having worked hard to reach this position, she was still nervously organizing the reports submitted by her subordinates as she spoke. Now that she’s almost 33, she still doesn’t want to have children, fearing that having kids will interfere with her career. 　　In their interviews, reporters found that it has become an unwritten rule in some companies for female employees not to get pregnant within a certain period; some companies even stipulate that they must not get pregnant for 10 years, on the grounds that leaving their jobs to raise children disrupts the continuity of business operations and increases the company’s costs. Some companies even require employees to wait in line to have children within the company. 　　More women, fearing the high costs of raising children, want to have them but dare not. Recently, media reports have indicated that white-collar workers in Shanghai need to spend 490,000 yuan to raise a child until they turn 20, which has caused concern among young couples. 　　Working women trapped in the fertility dilemma: Xiang Qing (a pseudonym), 37 years old, is a psychological counselor. While helping others overcome their problems every day, she is unable to solve her own issue – she has been struggling with infertility for 3 years now. I really can’t understand it: from when I started dating my boyfriend in college until we moved in together, I was worried every day about getting pregnant. If I wasn’t careful enough and didn’t use contraception, a new life would begin to grow inside me. At that time, I had no other choice but to have an abortion. These days, there’s no shortage of money; one can have houses, cars, stocks, funds – everything. The only thing one desires is a child, but the child just doesn’t arrive. I’ve been to fertility clinics over and over again, but it hasn’t worked. 　　Mary, 36, is a department manager at a foreign-funded company. At the age of 26, she became pregnant not long after getting married, but she prioritized her career and gave up the child. At the age of 30, I finally reached the position of department manager, but then, unintentionally, another child was born. She chose to give up again. Now, she and her husband have achieved some success in their careers, and they are overjoyed at the thought of having a baby. Yet after waiting for two years with no signs of pregnancy, a medical examination revealed that Mary had blocked fallopian tubes; the doctors said it could be caused by the two previous abortions. 　　There are quite a number of working women in Shanghai in situations similar to that of Xing Qing. Zou Dongfang, head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the 85th Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army, believes that this peculiar cycle of being unable to conceive when one wants to, and being able to conceive when one doesn’t, is due, aside from the pressures in the workplace that force women into such situations, to the fact that women deplete too much of their fertility capacity during the years when they are capable of conceiving. 　　Experts warn: Abortion is the greatest strain on fertility. Director Zou explained that abortion represents the greatest strain on reproductive capacity. Abortion can easily lead to inflammation, causing conditions such as pelvic inflammatory disease, which can also affect the fallopian tubes. Furthermore, multiple abortions can thin the functional layer of the uterus, just as soil that has been overfarmed becomes infertile. Upon becoming pregnant again, the embryo may fail to \"implant\" or may implant poorly, leading to miscarriage. 　　Secondly, age is the biggest enemy of a woman’s fertility. In the 1990s, people usually gave birth around the age of 25. More than 10 years have passed, and the average age at which women give birth has increased by at least 5 years; it is now common for women in Shanghai to have children in their 30s. However, according to female physiological patterns, fertility is at its peak at the age of 25; it declines gradually after 30, drops rapidly after 35, and by 44, 87% of women have lost their ability to conceive. 　　Experts point out that the optimal childbearing age for women is between 24 and 28 years old. Perhaps this period is marked by issues such as employment problems and unstable incomes, but young couples should prepare in advance, make plans, and make rational choices; they shouldn’t wait until problems arise before trying to resolve them, as this can lead to various health risks.