“We are happy to announce the birth of our son Cardinal Madden,” Cameron Diaz wrote on his Instagram account last week. At 51, the Hollywood star welcomed her second child, without specifying whether, as with her eldest Raddix, born in 2019 thanks to a surrogate mother (GPA), she sought medical help. “It’s never too late to become a mother,” Naomi Campbell, then 53, wrote in June 2023 to announce the birth of her second child. Likewise, Hillary Swank, who was expecting twins at 48, flooded her account Instagram photos of her beautiful rounded belly throughout her pregnancy in 2023.
In Hollywood, more and more stars are choosing to become mothers later. “The representations conveyed by the pregnancies of these women lead to a lack of understanding of the fertility situation and a lack of knowledge of the technique of medically assisted procreation (AMP), people think that with AMP, it will be simple », underlines Virginie Rio, founder of the collective Bamp, an association of patients of medically assisted procreation and infertile people. If it is possible to get pregnant spontaneously after 45 -Virginie Efira is proof-, the reality is often crueler. Zoom in on the reverse shot of these ultra-glamorous photos which convey false beliefs about fertility and the exploits of medicine.
6% chance of getting pregnant at 40
More and more women are deciding to start a family after 38. But the longer a woman waits, the more difficult it is for some. “From around the age of 38, the depletion of the ovarian reserve becomes more pronounced. Reproductive capacities cease several years before menopause, which occurs around age 50 (…). Thus, fecundability (the probability of conceiving) per cycle is estimated (…) at 6% at age 40,” according to the Report on the causes of infertility led by Professor Samir Hamamah and Salomé Berlioux in 2022. This is far from walking by snapping your fingers.
“Always use a positive example to say, you see it works, it’s problematic,” continues Virginie Rio. Yes, it works for some women who are few in number. But putting this representation obscures all those for whom it does not work and who are more numerous.”
And, contrary to popular belief, medicine is very far from being a magician. According to the same report, “beyond the age of 38, the results of in vitro fertilization (IVF), [qui consiste à reproduire en laboratoire la rencontre entre l’ovocyte et le sperme], are unsatisfactory, and they are further impacted by a miscarriage rate of up to 40%.” Delivery rates using this technique are around 13% at 38/39 years, 6% at 40/42 years and 2.5% at 43 years and over, according to figures from the Biomedicine Agency (ABM 2020 ). You will admit that we are far from the miracle solution.
France, bad student of the PMA
“In France, when we say 25% success on average, we say 75% failure, and why 75% failure? We have room for improvement to implement, analyzes Virginie Rio. You can start an AMP course at 30 and not have finished it at 40. We need to optimize certain aspects.”
Unlike other countries such as Spain or the United States, many tests on the embryo and on patients are not systematically carried out in France, or are even prohibited by law. For example, medicine is not allowed to carry out preimplantation diagnosis looking for aneuploidies (chromosomal abnormalities), or PGD-A, used in most European countries. It makes it possible to detect abnormalities in the number of chromosomes in one or two cells of the embryo. It optimizes the chances of pregnancy in the context of IVF by checking the implantation potential of the embryo.
As a result, in France, we transfer (place in the woman’s uterus) embryos which have no chance of leading to a pregnancy. Couples face repeated, avoidable failures. And let’s not talk about the risk of undergoing a medical termination of pregnancy (IMG) in the event of chromosomal anomalies.
After 45 years, nothing is possible in France
Difficult to copy Naomi Campbell or Cameron Diaz in France. At the age of 50, French medicine does not allow a woman to carry out IVF, or even to welcome an embryo made from donor gametes. Nothing is possible anymore, except a spontaneous pregnancy, but “at age 50, the chances of getting pregnant naturally are close to zero,” recalled obstetrician-gynecologist François Olivennes, on Europe 1 in 2016.
“Medical assistance with procreation can be provided until her 45th birthday for women, unmarried or within a couple, who intend to carry the child. Until his 60th birthday with the member of the couple who will not carry the child,” according to the site Public service. Needless to say, the surrogacy issue is not an option either. The bioethics law does not allow this.
After 45 years, however, a woman can go abroad (Spain, Belgium, Czech Republic, etc.) to carry out assisted reproduction, generally IVF with donor oocytes and sperm, or even use a surrogate mother in a country that authorizes the practice of surrogacy. There, you have to make the ticket machine spit out.