Reproductive Ageing and Fertility Myths

Professor Susan Bewley

@ The Book Club, Shoreditch

Professor Susan Bewley will describe the biological consequences of the recent increase in older-age pregnancies and family planning. Describing how technology has both contributed to the success of this trend (for better or worse) and why there’s a pressing need for public health outreach on the matter. Teenagers are told in school not to get pregnant and women are often encouraged to put their careers before starting a family—but at what cost?

Professor Susan Bewley qualified as a doctor in 1982. She has a degree in medical law and ethics, was the first woman trained in Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the UK and worked as an obstetrician with pregnant women for almost 30 years. Her main research interests are severe maternal morbidity and violence in pregnancy. She has observed the much-hyped successes and much less well recognised harms of assisted reproduction and IVF over the past four decades. She was a member of the NICE Fertility Guideline Group and chaired the recent Intrapartum Guideline Development Group.