Single Mom Shares Story of Being Pregnant at 51

At age 51, Tracey Kahn has a very busy life as she splits her time between running her publicity firm and raising her daughter, Scarlett, as a single mother. But even after passing her 50th birthday, Kahn said, her family still felt incomplete. Since she wanted another child, earlier this year Kahn underwent in-vitro fertilization with donor sperm and a donor egg and became pregnant with her second daughter. Scarlett, 2, was also conceived through IVF using donor sperm and egg.

This week, Kahn revealed her story in the New York Post as way to show other women that they should not pay attention to anyone else when they are considering having children, even if they are much older than most women giving birth.

While Kahn’s two pregnancies, one in her late 40s and now one in her early 50s, are rare, they are no longer unique, said Dr. Eric Flisser, an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

“It’s, for sure, not as shocking as it was in the past,” said Flisser, who also works at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, where Kahn was treated. “Forty years ago, none of [these treatments] existed at all.”