Late-in-Life Pregnancies and Special Needs Children

[Max]

Aside from the current storyline with B&B's Brooke, are there any other notable late-in-life pregnancy storylines that come to mind? The only ones I can think of are AW's Rachel (who gave birth to twins Cory and Elizabeth in her 50s) and AMC's Ruth (who gave birth to Joey, aka Jake).

The dangers that a late-in-life pregnancy pose are worthy of exploration, although I have little confidence that B&B would handle these issues in a serious way. Presuming that Brooke doesn't actually suffer a miscarriage, there should definitely be dialogue (right now) on B&B concerning whether her baby will be a special needs child. Strangely, I believe that Joey/Jake was a child with severe special needs, whose history was forgotten about (as he later became a doctor). (I know that it is possible that a special needs child could go on to become a doctor, but such things rarely happen.)

[DRW50]

B&B is the last show to be able to do this type of story justice. The child would be forgotten only to be killed offcamera in a year.

Ada from AW had a late-in-life pregnancy, which the show used to help redeem Rachel.

Reva and Vanessa had late-in-life pregnancies on GL.

Marlena on DAYS had a pregnancy in 2005 or 2006, which ended in miscarriage.

[Paul Raven]

When Ruth was pregnant she feared her child might have problems and she had amniocentesis which at the time was new procedure.

Clarice on AW also dealt with the issue.

Holly on GL had a Downs Syndrome daughter.

[sivad40]

Lily Montgomery on AMC was autistic.

Pete Cortlandt was Opal and Palmer's late in life child on AMC.

[Winchester91]

I'd love to have seen Blondie give birth to Ben Davidson's child. That was prolly the last opportunity for Slezak.

[Cheap21]

How about AMC's Opal. She was already old by the time she had Petey

[Wizzerkat]

AMC's Angie was pregnant in her 40's but I don't know how into her 40's she was.

[Cheap21]

Defiently late 40s, if not 50. Unfortunately they never made age an issue with her; it was all about her being blind

[Chris B]

Isn't Angie in her 50s? But of course Debbi Morgan looks so much younger than it wasn't an issue. When Reva got pregnant on GL I found it absolutely ridiculous. It wasn't the age so much as it was the wrong character and actresses for that type of story. I have no idea what they could've been thinking.

[Soaplovers]

I think Holly was pregnant, and it turned out that the baby had Down Syndrome. For over a year, the show did show realistic scenes of both parents grappling with having a child with special needs, then the writer regime change and it was placed far back on the back burner.

[LindaTNo1]

Debbi Morgan is 56 years old with her 57th birthday coming up in September. For someone pushing 60 in a few years she looks simply wonderful and aging gracefully too. Darnell is 58 years old.

[Nate4]

On B&B, Sally gave birth to CJ when she was 57.

Lauren was in her 40's when she gave birth to Fen, but that's not that old.

On GH: NS, Stone Jr. had autism.

This is the opposite, but Kate is a great grandmother and she's in her 50s.

[jam6242]

Going way back, but on Days when Addie Williams became pregnant with Hope she initially thought she was going through menopause. She was supposed to be 50ish at the time. The story didn't delve into possible problems with the baby because of her age though.

[Pine Charles]

I don't have the book in front of me, so I could be getting the details wrong, but....

According to the AMC trivia book, Anne and Paul's Martin's baby, Beth (?), was retarded. I think this was 1976 or so. Paul wanted to send the baby to some special hospital across the country, but Anne refused. The baby ended up dying for some reason; Anne went bonkers and carried around a doll thinking it was the child. Phoebe ended up getting sick & tired of this and threw the doll into the fireplace (LOL) in front of a terrified Anne.

[jam6242]

I don't remember the doll but I do remember Anne and Paul having a disabled baby. I think the baby died of SIDS and Anne had a break down and was institutionalized.