Current doctors - when is the best time to have babies?

As someone that wants to have children sooner rather than later (ideally completing my family by 30) I'd like to know when most people tend to get pregnant?

I'm currently at the end of 4th year - would have had 1 year till i finish but planning on intercalating making me 25 by the time i graduate and 27 after F2.

Is post F2 a common time to have a baby? Or would it better to start CT/ST/GP training before family planning?

Thanks

Reply 1

Helenia

Original post by Anonymous

Usually once you've got a training job - certainly that's what the TSR medic mum cohort have done! You can do it earlier, depends on your priorities.

I'm 32, 29/40 with my first (I also graduated at 25) and will have just completed ST4 in anaesthetics when the baby arrives. We started trying once I got my reg job, but it took a while...

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

Original post by Helenia

Congratulations!

Im not exactly sure how it all works, so you wouldnt advise to take time off between f2 & training? Is the done thing to just apply for a training job during f2 and start trying once you start the training job? I understand you need to work till 11 weeks before the due date to be eligible for maternity pay (which i believe is 8 weeks full pay followed by 18weeks half pay as long as youve worked continually for the previous year - does this count if the previous year was spread over a few months of F2 and a few months of ST1/CT1 etc? )

Reply 3

Elles

Different NHS jobs count as continuous service for the NHS occupational maternity pay (the 8 weeks full then 18 weeks half + SMP) but if different employers then depending when you switch rather than this including SMP directly from your employer you may have to apply for MA via the DWP - although the totals will be the same if you get OMP overall & you don't pay tax on MA.
I think you can have up to a 3 month break e.g. between FY2 & specialty training that starts Sept or Oct & it's still counted as continuous service.

I think the key factor is your personal health/relationship situation & how large a family you'd like. But if you're standard age or young grad entry i agree with Helenia that specialty training is ideal - it's easier to organize part time with varied changeovers than foundation, you've made more of a start to your career/jobs for longer to come back to & better paid.

I'm 31 now had my first towards the end of ST2 (27) & hoped to have a second in my final ST3 registrar year that I was doing part time... But as it happened ended up having recurrent miscarriages, so was pregnant 4 times during that academic year then with the last successful one missed out on SMP (90% salary for 6 weeks then SMP basic rate for up to 39) by a few weeks & NHS OMP by a few more.
But I do get MA (about £600 per month for 9 months) for having been employed recently & we were lucky enough to have twins :love:

that time so I'm sort of saving the financial/career cost of a 3rd maternity leave... :tongue:

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 4

Hygeia

I had my son 9 months into ct1 - unfortunately I had a lot of problems during my pregnancy and looking back might have been better off waiting until I had a training number (currently in core training so st3 would probably have been better timing in retrospect!) If there had been no problems during the pregnancy however then the timing would probably have been perfect so difficult judge really!

Reply 5

Helenia

Original post by Anonymous

It's up to you, in the end. I preferred to have the security of a training number before having children because I knew I would have something to come back to and didn't fancy tackling applications while out of training/on mat leave. I ended up having a year in a non-training post after F2 because I didn't get a core training job first time around, and wanted to make sure I was settled career wise (housing is another story!) If you're desperate to have kids early - though completing your family by 30 seems like a rather arbitrary number - then no-one will stop you.

As Elles said, as long as you have >12 months continuous NHS service (grade doesn't matter) you can get maternity pay.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 6

Pertie

Just to offer another experience...

I have had 3 in medical school and am currently pregnant with no.4 who is due end of August. Nevertheless, I will be starting F1 in a few weeks :redface:

Things don't always work out the way you plan them too, and I firmly believe its more important who you have them with rather than when you have them :smile:

Best of luck!

Reply 7

Helenia

Original post by Pertie

Just to offer another experience...

I have had 3 in medical school and am currently pregnant with no.4 who is due end of August. Nevertheless, I will be starting F1 in a few weeks :redface:

Things don't always work out the way you plan them too, and I firmly believe its more important who you have them with rather than when you have them :smile:

Best of luck!

Wow! How on earth do you manage? And will you be starting F1 for only a couple of weeks? I'm due mid-September and going on ML in the third week of August.

Reply 8

username1236842

Completing your family by 30 sounds very early to me. Med school years and the early junior doc years are intense and having pregnancy hormones and young kids to add to the stress sounds unnecessary Also you don't get the no kids years back, enjoy them and the way you can intensely focus whilst you can. I'd wait until on a proper career path. I waited until I was a GP principal, although you then don't get employee maty benefits but I think if you have the maximum time off it's often hard to get back in to being a doctor again. Also if you wait a while you can build up money to sort out childcare unless your spouse plans to be a house husband.

Reply 9

Anonymous #1

I'm from a part of the country where more than half of my friends have had atleast 1 child (to put it into perspective im 23, so a lot of my friends had there very young and now on #2 or #3)

Of course it is no race, but having been with my partner for several years (met at medical school so wont be a househusband sadly! we'll both be tackling junior doctor jobs) both of our mums had their 1st quite young and I do lightheartedly get asked when we are planning to... as it stands I had no intentions till at least after F2, but reading the comments here it sounds like itd be best to wait for another year or two which sounds like I may or may not even be able to have my 1st by 30...
I guess these are just the cons of a medical career that we all have to deal with!

Reply 10

Anonymous #2

I thought you were asking about the best time biologically to have kids - which, depending on how many you want, is actually significantly younger than many people realise

Reply 11

Anonymous #2

Original post by Anonymous

I thought you were asking about the best time biologically to have kids - which, depending on how many you want, is actually significantly younger than many people realise

By this I mean, after a certain age, the probability of you having children, even if you tried, becomes lower than you'd imagine. Haven't got the data in front of me now, but I think 30 years old is probably the right time to be reasonably sure of ending up with 2-3 kids, if that's the number you want - much older, and the chances decrease significantly

Reply 12

Pertie

Original post by Helenia

Wow! How on earth do you manage? And will you be starting F1 for only a couple of weeks? I'm due mid-September and going on ML in the third week of August.

Ha...a lot of caffeine :wink:

My husband is super supportive, which helps. And I have given in to living in constant chaos!

Yes, we didn't want a huge gap between our youngest and the next one so took a bit of a gamble and got pregnant a few months before finals. Revision and the horrors of the 1st trimester were not ideal but I got through it. And I really wanted to start F1 even if it was just for a short while - will be 35/36 weeks when I start and the plan is to keep going until I give birth. I've gone to T+11 with the others so i'm hoping this one will follow the same pattern!

Congratulations on your baby, hope your pregnancy is going well :smile:

Reply 13

Desi123

Original post by taysidefrog

Yeah, my aunty had kids at 32 and she's a GP now, idk what career stage she was at but I heard being a junior is really hard at the start

Reply 14

Pertie

Oh, and to the OP...

I had my 1st when I was 23 and in 3rd year of 4yr GEM course, 2nd at 25yrs, 3rd at 27yrs. This baby will be my last and I will turn 30 a couple of weeks before she is born.

So it might not be the most conventional plan, but it is possible to become a doctor and complete your family by 30 :smile:

Reply 15

Helenia

Original post by Pertie

Ha...a lot of caffeine :wink:

Thanks, and congratulations on yours and on passing finals!

OP, I think this contrast nicely illustrates how there isn't one right answer, and whichever you choose will have an impact one way or another.

On the one hand, you've got people like me, who've got established on my chosen career path and am confident in managing the demands of the job, but have put off children until a bit later. On the other hand you have people like Pertie who have got the child-bearing bit done early and navigated medical school with multiple kids in tow, but are now 30 and only just getting started on the medical career ladder. I found FY1 really tough, far harder than any med school placement, and am extremely glad I didn't also have to worry about kids and pregnancy at the same time. I suspect in 10-15 years' time we'll all end up in roughly the same place, just having come via different routes!

My personal perspective, like yours, was no doubt influenced by the actions of those around me. For starters, I was my mother's first child, born when she was 36 (which was seen as considerably "older" in the mid-80s than it is now) and I never felt any negative effects from this, plus she has never put any pressure on for grandkids. Secondly, I am not really in touch with anybody from my school or hometown, all my closest friends are from uni and either doctors or in other professional careers where it is not usual to have kids in your 20s. I don't think starting as early as Pertie would have been possible for me, because my relationship wasn't really established enough at that point (LDR until I graduated), then my now-husband got seriously ill in my FY1 year, so it wouldn't have really been practical to start more than a couple of years earlier.