LIST: 6 celebrity moms who gave birth in their 40s—and one at 50
Generations ago, a woman who was still single at 30 was considered on her way to becoming an old maid. And a woman who was childless by 40 as having missed the chance to become a mother.
But the times and science have changed. So has the attitude of women themselves who wanted to become first-time moms or mom-again later in life—after establishing a career or waiting for the right partner or the right time.
Men, of course, are not hampered by either biology or ageism. Director Clint Eastwood became a father to his seventh child when he was 66—so did Rod Stewart. The Beatles’ Paul McCartney’s youngest child was born in 2003, when he was 61.
Men can be fertile in old age. Women, on the other hand, have a biological clock whose ticking begin waking up the neighbors when they hit 35. Nonetheless, maternal age has risen over the years.
There are, of course, risks involved for older pregnant women and a higher risk of chromosomal defects such as Down syndrome. According to the US CDC, “Older mothers are more likely to have a baby affected by Down syndrome than younger mothers. In other words, the prevalence of Down syndrome increases as the mother's age increases.”
Even as a woman’s fertility naturally declines with age, making it harder for her to conceive, an average woman’s reproductive years are actually between the ages of 12 and 51.
A study found that women who give birth later in life tend to live longer. Menopause published a study in 2015 which found that women who “gave birth after 40 were four times more likely to live to be a 100 years old.”
Below are some Hollywood celebs who gave birth in their 40s (and one at 50):
Salma Hayek
Salma Hayek gave birth to her daughter Valentina when she was 41. In 2009, she told WebMD, “I thought I was going to need help getting pregnant, and I didn’t. I’m a more fulfilled human being now, and I probably wouldn’t have been 10 years ago. She gets a better mother for being born now.”
Halle Berry
Halle Berry gave birth to her first child at 41, and her second at 47. She told Ellen DeGeneres that it was a “geriatric pregnancy” and came as a total surprise to her. “I was, you know, on my way…this is probably way TMI, but I was kinda premenopausal so to have this happen was a huge shock.”
Susan Sarandon
Sarandon gave birth to two of her children when she was 42 and 45, both sons with husband Tim Robbins. She once told Time Out New York, “I wasn’t in a hurry, but I actually had a medical condition and was told I could never be a mother.”
Sarandon explained that she was diagnosed with endometriosis, and when she got pregnant, “it was just such a freak thing that….I thought I can’t ignore this. And so I jumped.”
Christie Brinkley
Eighties and Nineties supermodel Christie Brinkley gave birth to her third child when she was 44 years old through IVF with husband Peter Cook. In an interview with Good Housekeeping in 1998, she said, “After the first miscarriage, I tried to take the attitude that it was my body's way of telling me that this pregnancy wasn't meant to be. But after the second one, it was really devastating. Four months is a lot of living with that little life in you—thinking about it, eating right for it, nurturing it and all of a sudden, it dies. After the second one, we decided to try in vitro, because both Peter and I felt we couldn't handle another failure."
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman hasn’t shied away from talking about her struggles with infertility after she got divorced from Tom Cruise. She thought she could not conceive naturally, but she gave birth to a biological daughter with Keith Urban when she was 41.
She told Australian magazine Who, “I've done all the stuff you can possibly do to try to get pregnant. So, the way it just happened with Sunday (their daughter) was like, ‘What?’ The percentages were so low. It is the miracle in my life.”
Janet Jackson
In 2016, Jackson cancelled her Unstoppable tour and announced she was pregnant—just a few weeks before her 50th birthday. She gave birth to a heathy boy and named him Eissa.
In 2018, she said during an interview on Australian radio show “Carrie and Tommy,” “I never knew I was as patient as I really am. He’s first and foremost in my life. I get up, I go to sleep—everything is about him. He comes first in my life.”