This is the most traumatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren Zima coming to you from our home office in Austin, Texas, and we're talking about daddies. We are talking about old daddies today.
Oh my gosh, that's gonna be gooking so many different ways.
Don't call me daddy, Zaddy. We are talking about al Pacino, Robert de Niro, new dads, A couple of young new dads on the take right now.
Oh my god.
These stories have kind of coincided, which is really weird. I think part of the story and why this is so captivating LZ is they are friends, co stars. Those two are kind of synonymous.
With each other.
With each other is Hollywood legends.
Back to the movie Heat, back to that they were, you know, both the Godfather series. We both looked at they were I don't know how many movies they've done together. They just did The Irishman together with March right.
One of the most legendary cinematic moments was when the two of them were in the same scene in the movie Heat, and everyone talks about that scene and breaks it down. So these two are synonymous with each other.
They are longtime friends. And look, I've interviewed them both. They have a real love for each other. I don't know if they intended to do this together, but yes, part of what's been grabbing headlines. We talked about Robert de Niro, the news that he was going to become a dad at seventy nine, and now just then, just a few days later, the news dropped that is bal Al is going to become a dad at eighty three.
And actually Al has just weighed in. We're sitting here on a Tuesday, and al Pacino has just spoken out about the news that he's expecting a baby with his twenty nine year old girlfriend twenty nine. He's spoken about it for the first time. He told The Daily Meal that it is quote very special, he said, it always has been. I've got many kids, but this is really special and interesting choice of words here, he said, but this is really special coming at this time.
Now.
I don't know that means like the relationship he's in or his age, but I mean, you know, when you break it down, it's like this article I'm looking at, of course notes his other children, because Al says I've got many kids.
He has.
Three other kids and one of them is his thirty three year old daughter. So he's got a thirty three year old daughter and he's having a kid with his twenty nine years oldlfriend.
His daughter is four years older than the baby mama. No judgment, No, I'm just trying to get the math right.
Just math speaks for itselfish.
I want to chew that up and swallow it and think about it for a minute.
So of course, people have a lot of comments on this, and when you and I were talking about the Robert De Niro News, you said you felt that becoming a dad at this age was very selfish.
Look, I try to lead with grace and understanding and try to not judge and take it all in. From my perspective, it just there is a there's a selfish element to it when you were that age, just because of the percentages that you will not be alive much longer. Youish that that is one hundred percent short, you're going to die.
You know what is I'm just kind of realizing as we're sitting here talking about this, and I am going to get maybe a little emotional for a second, but we're bringing two very different perspectives. Because you are obviously parent. I am a step parent, but I so I really try to defer to you sometimes and know that maybe I don't have that blood children of my own perspective, but I come at it from the view of my dad died suddenly when he was in his early fifties.
I was in my twenties, my sister was nineteen, my brother was fourteen. And I think a silver lining of that is that I've looked at parenting as being like, at the end of the day, all a kid needs, in my mind, is to know that they were loved, like to know the love of a parent. And I do totally understand if a parent is so old that their kid like doesn't remember them, that's not great. But
I do think that I don't know. I guess I think like, if you knew that your parent loved you and they gave you a good foundation, that's what's most important. I hope Alan Bob are around to give the kids a good foundation.
Rus too.
Not wishing you all on either one of them. And as you said, tomorrow is promised to nobody. There are many people listening who lost a parent. Sitting here with Elsie, as she just said, lost her dad at a very young age. And he was fifty one, and he was young, and so he didn't get to go through a lot of the steps that he would have dreamt of. That I dream of watching your kids, you know, walk across the stage, walk down the aisle, et cetera, enjoy their
first job, and hopefully someday have grandkids. But when you are starting this journey at eighty years old, if I kind of average their ages together, just you're you're putting yourself behind the eight ball in a way that whether you do pass die or just you're to the point where the kids are changing your diapers and you're no longer changing theirs. That's just I don't know. It feels like you're you're missing a part of this. And I guess the question is why, Like what is the purpose?
Well, I would imagine the purpose is that their partner wants to have a child. I'm right, I don't know. Or maybe these guys do want did want to become dads again. Maybe they love being parents of new children. But you know, Al Pacino's girlfriend's twenty nine, Robert De Niro's is I'm going to try to look this up again to make sure I get it right. But I
believe his partners in her forties. And Robert de Niro had also spoken out about the news of him expecting a baby, and he said, you know that he actually now understands family dynamics better as an older dad, and so he thinks hester be able to bring what he's learned to the table.
There is a lot of that, you know. I look at myself now at fifty one, compared to when I started as a dad, when I was thirty. I'm older, wiser, I have a lot more life experience. I can give my kids a lot better advice than I could back then. But I just there was a time in place, and I am I get it. I'm a little traditional. I was excited to coach little Lee, go to dance recitals, be a part of just that active life, be on the beach and jump in the waves with my daughter
and my son. There's a part of life that I think it's good to have that young, younger energy. Well, and maybe my opinion will change. We have a guest on today and that we're going to jump into pretty soon. Maybe she will change my perspective. And we wanted a very objective view.
We wanted an objective view. We wanted the information because I think this news is raised. It's gotten people talking a lot just about parenting in general. I mean, are so many like also stories like Nick Cannon having I think over a dozen children at this point having babies in secret, Elon Musk saying that, you know, he's worried about how the birth rate is declining. There's been a lot of pop culture celebrity talk about having kids, having a lot of kids, and having kids older.
Lately, freezing eggs and is it tougher to get pregnant.
So we are.
Bringing on an expert so that we don't get into the armchair birthing.
I might not be a doctor, I may have played one on TV, but I think we need a house call. We need a real doctor in the house. Joining us now doctor Christine Sterling, at Board certified OBGYN and founder of Sterling Parents. There is so much to talk about. First of all, doctor Stirling, thank you so much for joining us. We are excited to get this professional, objective take from a doctor. On first, have you heard about the Robert de Niro al Pacino story?
Yes?
I have, Yes, Okay, so both gentlemen obviously are having children at a very point.
Out that al Pacino because I just I was doing a little more like deeper reading into it all.
One thing I didn't realize and could be true for De Niro as well.
So Al's eighty three, Bob is seventy nine, I think, yes, And al Pacino is now having a child with a woman who is younger than his daughter. And so the woman he's having a child with is twenty nine. The woman Robert de Niro is having his childhood is a bit older. I think she's in her forties. And I just was like, you know, you start to think of Thanksgiving and what it looks like, and I have no judgment, Like I'm like, is the more the merrier, all the
love for a family. But like I mean, doctor, I guess first because I have specific questions of course, but what's just your initial reaction as a doctor when you hear about people men parenting. I don't know that women can, but men parents in their seventies and eighties.
Yeah, I mean, listen what you said I really agree with.
I mean, it's who am I to really judge, you know, But you know, of course, from a medical perspective, there are some considerations we have for advanced paternal age, and we can definitely dive into some of the things that we think about when we hear about a man who's having children at a later age, and I think that, you know, it's really difficult for me to kind of separate out that that doctor self and also that parent self, because I mean, I have I have an abundance of
compassion for all people involved. I just think of myself. My greatest fear I'm a mother of free children. My greatest fear in the whole world is not being there long enough for my kids. You know. It's that loss. And so the I just picture, you know, myself being the idea of having a child in my eighties would just be really jarring because you know that there's a very good chance that you're not going to be there for that child.
And this is something.
Chris and I differ on doc. We talked about it a little bit on another podcast when the Robert and erom neews broke. I'm like, hey, you know, they got the money to take care of these kids, they got the love.
Chris thinks it's very selfish.
Well, I just think like people will say that, oh yeah, they're rich, they have help that doesn't raise a child. Money has never raised a child, and they are going to be without a parent. Even if they live exponentially longer than any other human being, they're still going to die fairly young in this child life. Yeah, and money won't feel that. And money doesn't.
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think, you know, there's how we define the person who becomes you know, your parent isn't always the person who has contributed the genetic material.
And so I think that with somebody, you know, particularly in the case of Roberts Neiro, this is a twenty nine year old woman, the very likely see yeah, sorry, with al Pacino, Yeah, the likelihood is that this is this is a person who you know, is going to have another partner who could potentially, you know, fill that fill that role of a parent, because it's very oftentimes that the person who does a lot of the parenting is not the person who was, you know, the genetic biological parent.
I'm curious. I mean, I'm fifty one, so I know it's still viable now, but when I'm seventy nine eighty is that do you see a lot of men at that age being able to.
Asking about the quality of the genetic material.
Are you still firing bullets at eighty years old? You are?
You are? I mean, it's you know, it's fundamentally the production of s sperm is fundamentally different from the production of eggs. So so women have our highest number of our people who have ovaries have our highest number of eggs. Actually when we're in utero, when we are inside you know, our mother and you.
Were born with all the eggs you're ever.
Going to have, yeah, exactly, whereas sperm is produced throughout you know, so so yes, you you know, men can potentially you know, impregnant people until their last day on this that that is a possibility.
I mean, my morbid curiosity is, you know, how are these children conceived?
Biac That's my guess, right, Look, I think, Alan, Bob, these are guys with sweat.
I'm not questioning their ability to perform.
I'm wondering about the quality of the guys, like just the quality of creed.
As men get older.
You have a wonder we it I mean essentially what we because we do see an increase in the risks of some genetic conditions and some complications of pregnancy associated with advance paternal age, which by the way, is not uniformly and universally you know, agreed upon what age is truly advanced paternal age. But you know, yes, as we
get older are our DNA degrades. So we see a lot of conditions that are slightly increased or you know, significantly increase in men who are having children when they're forty enough, certainly forty five and fifty en up.
Essentially, because we talk a lot about as women get older what that means, but it is interesting that the opposite of that is what it means when men are older, and what are the genetic consequences of that? Very interesting. I don't know how much how many of those studies have been done to see what the consequences are when men are older.
You know, it's tricky too because a lot of times when you have an older father, you also have an older mother, so it can be difficult to kind of tease out, well, where's the contribution here, But there are studies that show, you know, an increased risk of some genetic conditions. One of the ones that we know the most about that has the most data supporting it something called achondroplasia, which is the most common form of dorphism that is very clearly linked with advanced paternal age, so
forty five and up. And then there's there's other genetic conditions. Interestingly, actually just stational diabetes, which is a condition of the pregnant person is increased when the father or the sperm donor is forty five years interesting.
Yeah, so, Doc, it does seem that there's just an irony in this because it's like the younger our bodies are, the healthier they are to have kids, but the older we are, the better our for having kids. Well, what roberts you a GAMD interview and he's spoken and he said, look, I do feel at this age. He was kind of defending having a kid at this age, and he said, I understand the family and dynamics much better than when
I was a younger parent. Like he was sort of saying, I'm kind of more mature now.
It's funny that they Well, I guess first let's touch on this.
I mean, in your practice, you work very closely with your patients, and I know you opened your practice Sterling Parents in part to like take more time with patients. Do you have any I don't want you to speak at you know, you know, give assessions you don't feel comfortable with. But what do you think is a good age to have kids at? From what you say, Oh gosh, is that But it's a really tough question, it is.
But I truly believe that that answer is different for everybody. For you know, for women, for the people who are carrying the pregnancy. There is a real kind of range where it is it's you know, it becomes a little bit less safe for us most because of the cardiovascular load of pregnancy. And interestingly, we see an increased risk and complications for young patients. So when we when we look at you know, teenagers and unfortunately sometimes even younger
than that, we see an increased risk of complications. And then when we get to the other end of the spectrum, when we get older, we see an increased risk and complications. And you know, most I'm not an infertility specialist, but most infertility specialists have cut a cutoff for the age that they will not go beyond to get a person pregnant,
and usually that's you know, in the fifties. So I believe the oldest person who's ever been impregnated through in vitro fertilization was in This was in their sixties, but I believe they had falsified some documents to to you know, appear younger.
It's older than I doubt it was going to be.
Well.
And I'm sure the spectrum, right, there's a spectrum, and I'm sure that spectrum has light and slid a little bit, because our life expectancy is much even just since the fifties and sixties or whatever, since my parents were having children, It's changed dramatically just in that amount of time. We're living longer, we're healthier longer. So I'm sure it is that gap is widened and it moves a little bit.
Yeah, And you know, if it wasn't for if it wasn't for the fact that that pregnancy is such a uh, you know, such a physiologic load on the person who's pregnant. You know, I don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong with having kids in your in your in your fifties, but for the person who's pregnant, you know, the cardiovascular
risk is significant in your fifties. As you know, our research and our you know, our medic our medicine advances, you know, these are potentially things that we could address.
Okay, so doctor, certainly, Bob, now I'm really giving them that. It makes them ide both before, so maybe I feel like.
I have.
I think this is especially making havelines because obviously they know each other, they're co stars, but they are both now having kids at this late age in life.
Is this becoming more common? Are you seeing older parents in your clinics?
And have you seen any any papa bears in their seventies and eighties?
So I personally have not had any uh baby daddies, any fathers of parents you know, in their in their seventies and eighties. It's so it's, you know, and it's not going to be that common. It's it's possible, but it's not going to be that common, right, But certainly we're seeing older parents, and I mean it makes sense.
I mean it is very you know, it is very difficult, especially in the in the United States, you know, in with our economy and the difficulties with how expensive childcare is and how expensive schooling is and all of these things. Like you you essentially have to have a two income household of like you know, of people doing really well to really feel like you can take care of children with ease when you're not struggling to pay the bill.
It's harder to establish your own life as a married couple now buying that first house, getting set up before you ever feel like you could bring a human being into this. Yeah, it's definitely pushed. It's kicked the can down the road for quite some time.
Man.
I think there is just a general maybe I'd love to ask you maybe there is a general thinking too of just the younger generation of not getting married, not having kids like we did when.
We're oh yeah, we're seeing that in the data, we are seeing that people are having less children. And I think it's just a result of one, you know, social media and podcasts like this and all of that, Like the word has kind of gotten out about the reality of parenting and how difficult it can be.
That's interesting. People are scared, we know the truth now.
And the financial stress. And I think that there's a lot of young people who are looking at the reality of parenting and not just like the the you know, the beautiful family life that's depicted you know on some you know, the older television shows and all of that, and they're they're seeing like the reality of care.
We all just watched The Brady Bunch Leave It to Beaver and Write and saw Norman Rockwell paintings and thought, yeah, this is great. Thank god Nick Cannon is helping populate the world. Though it's okay. He just had baby number forty five while we were podcast.
Well, actually, my mom actually used to say, my mom hadn't you when she was thirty, and she said she felt like she waited, But she also said if I'd known the reality, I.
Would have waited longer.
She's told me that several times, like saying, I didn't really you think you know how hard it's going to be, but you don't really know. So maybe there is more awareness of more people sharing the difficulty of like those early years and those sleepless nights.
And she's been scary not to scare more people, doctor Stirling. But I seem to be hearing more. It might be social media, so we hear more of everything. Yeah, people having difficulty getting pregnant, conceiving. Yeah, and I hear if I'm not mistaken, it has to do with men in our potency has dipped.
Well, you know I don't. First of all, we are seeing an increase in the overall you know, uh, rates of infertility, but that's because people are attempting to get pregnant later than ever before, So that's not really a surprise. And we see these decline. The decline is much you know, it's much more drastic essentially for women, for people with ovaries in the you know, in that kind of in those the decade of the thirties, right, we see that starting at thirty, we start to see those numbers kind
of creep up, unfortunately. And we also see that you know, the same thing and men, but it's it's a little bit later in life and it isn't quite as drastic. So but yes, infertility can be either caused by you know, the man or the woman, or it can be a combination.
I do feel like not just infertility, and I yeah, maybe doctor you can speak to some data on this, or if it's just more awareness, you know, I love that people share so people don't feel isolated and alone when they go through fertility struggles and when they have miscarriages and pregnancy losses.
Is that increasing?
Are pregnancy losses in cases of that increasing or do you think it just feels that way because people are open and sharing it.
More so when we look at like the miscarriage rate at for a particular age. No, it's not increasing, but we are seeing people getting pregnant later, and we know that. So one of the things that one of the risks that increases with age is the risk of chromosomal undermatic things like Down syndrome. Okay, and if you are pregnant and you have a baby or a fetus that has Down syndrome, the risk of pregnancy loss is higher in those pregnancies. So we are seeing as you get older,
your risk of pregnancy loss increases. There is some data that pregnancy loss may be associated with paternal age as well, but that data isn't isn't as you know, across the board. We don't see it across the board in all of the studies, so it's a little bit mixed. But so yes, as we as we get pregnant older, we are going to see it increase risk of pregnancy loss. And so
I think that's part of the picture. But also very clearly, even in the time that I've been in obigu An I've been at Obijuan since twenty twelve, the awareness of pregnancy loss has really really increased, and so I think that it's it's both things are happening well.
So a lot of this has to do with age, even more than I realize, because it's like that for everybody's if you're trying to get pregnant, grow older, you're seeing the in fertility struggles where you're seeing miscarriage more and people are getting.
It makes sense if we're if we're if we're sliding that scale down when you know, women have the most eggs, men are the most fertile, and we slide both of those people down, obviously the window closes a little bit. I'm I'm curious. You know, we've mentioned social media a few times and just so much information out there as nob G y N. And you've been doing this, as you said, since twenty twelve, so the last you know, eleven years a pretty big time of social media exploding.
Have you seen to the detriment as a doctor, people just getting you know, wild ideas off social media, on having kids, getting pregnant or self cures off the internet that you're like, whoa, WHOA, whoa, Please come to a doctor.
Yes, definitely. And I think the reality is is that you know, our social media is a tool, and there are some ways. You know, I'm on social media, I'm on TikTok and Instagram, I'm educating there and in some ways it has done so much good. Okay, but yes, there is a lot of misinformation on these apps and it can really increase people's fears. And you know, it's not just about pure misinformation, but it's about how we
talk about things. You know, we've you know, in this conversation, we have talked a lot about the risks of getting older as a parent and getting older as you you know, attempt to get pregnant. But the reality is is that there are also benefits to being advanced maternal age, to being older when you get pregnant, so and having your
children at a later age. And so that's the thing about social media is even when the information is good information, at your information, you're only getting a little slice of the pie, right, And so it's about kind of being able to get educated in a way that allows for nuance, allows you to really understand the full picture of an issue.
On that note, one, are there any misconceptions that you constantly see as novgyn that you would like to clear up here and now, things that pop in your head, like the top two or three, and then before I forget but two, we'll come back to Like, I would love to hear what some of those positive things are of being an older.
Parent, because I will say, I mean, I'm a millenniine thirty five.
So many of my friends have done exactly what we're talking about right now their career women.
They are doctors, lawyers, and.
Teachers, and a lot of them have waited until this time to have kids, or they've frozen their eggs, and so I just feel like this is a conversation I have all the time in a way of like being scared and being afraid and being worried.
I'd love to hear some of the positives.
Yeah you wait, and good job.
But yeah, so first anything you want to clear up.
Yeah, I think it's really really important to understand that age is only one factor in the whole fertility discussion. There are a lot of people who attempt to get pregnant at twenty eight, twenty nine and really struggle to conceive, and everybody in their life is telling them, you're young, it's not going to be a problem. So age is just one factor. There are many causes of infertility, and I think we oftentimes lead out the people who are
supposedly young who are are unable to get pregnant. So there's that, and then the other thing is I think egg freezing and potentially embryo freezing, which is when you freeze an embryo, are really great ways to potentially preserve your fertility. But I think a lot of people think that that is a one hundred percent like that's that's what you need to do, and it's not one hundred percent.
So it's clear that doing you know, if you're going to freeze your eggs, doing so as you know, as young as possible is going to help you get the highest yield of eggs, but it's not one hundred percent guarantee. And I think a lot of people are surprised when they go back and they're like, Okay, I'm you know, I'm forty two, I'm now ready to get pregnant, and they're not able to use their own eggs.
Oh so, you know, Courtney Kardashian was just talking about this on The Kardashians New season. She said, I froze my eggs and I think she said only one of them survived, and that was shocking to me. I did not understand that at all. I thought it was kind of you frozen, they unfreeze. It's like go on a steak, You're good to go. So what is the percentage?
Then?
You know?
I actually I'm not a fertility specialist, so I don't know that percentage off the top of my head, but it's it's certainly not one hundred percent, so you want to And one thing we do know is that you can freeze your eggs, but you can also freeze embryos, and the yield is oftentimes higher with embryos. So if you know who your partner is, oftentimes a fertility specialist will recommend let's not just freeze your eg but let's also free some embryos as well.
We'll bring it back to pop culture.
I mean, I don't know how familiar are with the scandal all doctor, but thank god Arian and vander Pump rules she was going to have Tom's hand of all fertilize her embryos. And thank god, as we've discovered his cheating with her friends, she did not so partner wisely.
Right, yes, and that becomes a whole ethical legal issue. And there's been cases where you know, this is this person's they only have frozen embryos. They are not able to, you know, to otherwise have their own biological child, but they are no longer with that person, so it can become quite messy.
I'm curious with women having children later in life, which, as you said, it's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but it also closes that gap to menopause. And have you seen in your patients, because I'm sure obviously you're in obgu am. So you take their their health all the way through the effects of that and that that quick step from becoming a mom into that next stage of life. Yeah.
So the average age of menopause is fifty one, but a lot of people are starting to experience some of the pre menopausitive symptoms in sometimes even the early forties, but oftentimes by the mid to late forties are starting to experience some of those symptoms. And obviously, with an average age of menopause of fifty one, there's a lot
of people who are below that age. So yeah, it can be quite an interesting experience to go from Okay, I had my last child at forty three, and then the next year or you know, two years later, here I am and I'm having menopause symptoms or.
I guess even simultaneous for some Yeah, I mean go hand in hand.
Yes, I mean, if you're using assisted reproduction, you you know, you certainly could have your child and then that could be you know, that could be the end of your cycle after that.
Okay, So doctor you said there were some positive things about yeah, your parents.
What are something that would share? Now?
First of all, I am an older parent, Okay, so I have had advanced maternal age pregnancies. I really think that there's a lot of you know, benefits just from my personal experience, but also the data shows that there's benefits. So we see that children of older parents are healthier, they do better in school, and they have fewer social, emotional, and behavioral issues. And we also see some benefits for
the pregnant person. So we see that people who you know, that the pregnancy after thirty five is associated with longer lives, longevity, and we also see that improved memory and cognitive scores post menopause if you had your children later in life. So there's there's very clearly benefits, and that's that there's a reason why people delay child bearing, so that you can have, you know, the economic stability, the career stability, and also the emotional maturity.
I mean, look our perspective, my perspective when I started as a dad at twenty nine, at my perspective now at fifty one, is one hundred and eighty degree different.
I mean it's you're kind of this example of because your parents had you at nineteen and twenty and then you had your own kids starting in your thirties, and you look back at like even just what a difference that was.
Yeah, I mean my mom started having children when she was eighteen and had me when she was twenty, and so you know, I vividly remember my mom turning thirty I was I was ten eleven years old, and my brother was twelve for crying out loud, so you know, we were essentially at the same age as we all went to college together. So it was there's benefits to that. For sure, we had a lot in common. But then again I think about the perspective that I had much later.
So like you said, I think there's pluses and minuses to both that it has to do with each individual.
Mind saying older parent though, how you just explained it.
What age is that like, so that's if you become a parent your late thirties for the first time, roughly.
Yeah, so it depends on the study you look at. But advanced maternal age in the United States we're usually we're talking about thirty five years old and up. And then really there's also you know, some other countries well use forty years old as the cutoff, but it depends on each each study, So each study kind of uses their own age cutoff.
Right, Okay, I have a question, sir. I wrote down to many specific questions.
I know, I'm like I once, let's let's get it cleared by an expert today, not by TikTok Okay. A few years ago, there was this big I don't know if you remember this big there was this big, like trending Twitter moment about birth control. It might have been when I don't.
Know, some kind of birth control decision was coming I care for.
But yeah, there was this big trend of people discussing like should men just get vasectoms as.
A way of birth control?
And then it started coming up as how effective or vasectames when they're reverse And there's even that famous line. I don't know if you watched the office. But if you've seen the Dinner Party episode.
Where Michael Scott goes and then I got reverse and I got reversed again.
Yes, So how what does it look like?
How effective is it for aseectomy to potentially get reverse? Yeah, and what do you think of that conversation around it being like a former birth control that people are using.
I'm really really glad that you brought that up. So essentially, if you just look at the numbers, overall, we see that only about fifty percent of the sectims are able to be reversed.
Wow.
Now the longer you go between the actually the initial procedure and the reversal, the greater that percentage is going to get. So if you have a vseectomy and then you know six months later you decide to reverse it, well you're going to have a higher percentage of those being successful than if it's been ten years. But overall, it really needs to be considered a permanent sterilization. It's not something that we should be talking about, Oh, you can just go in and get it reversed, because that's
not true. For everyone. Some people it will be successful, some people it will not.
I went through this. I think my pipes are rusty and they're not coming back together. But I carefully sat down with the doctor and he was a great doctor and very much had that conversation with me. Are you sure, Because at the time I was, I forget how old I was, but I was like in my mid thirties. I had already had two kids, and so I knew that's where I was in my life. But he's like, you're still young enough, Are you sure? So that is an important conversation to have as a couple, not just
for the man, but as a couple. Is this what you're wanting to do? Because I have had friends that have tried the reversal and it has been very painful and very unsuccessful.
Oh is it like if you try to get a tattoo removed and it's more painful to get it removed than it was to get the tattoo.
Well, it's easy. Think about a wire, your vast deference to just cutting it, just cutting it and carterterizing it very easy grabbing those two things and trying to fray them back together not so easy. Destructions always easier than construction.
Yes, we and we do. We do that. We do tubal reconstructions for people who have their their tube tied, their their tubes tied as well, and it's a totally different procedure, much more technically challenging.
It's like how it's easier to get married than it is to get divorced. Okay, got it?
Oh yeah, and by the way, the wedding is a lot more fun than they don't show you that at the wedding video.
Doctor Sterling, I have one more question for you to kind of tie it all together, and then please let us know if there's anything like that.
I have loved this, by the way, Oh my gosh.
It's been so great. Thank you. Unfortunately, we could probably ask you like a million more questions, but you have to go treat real patients. So you know, we're talking here about this all started with al Pacino Roberts Nero being older dads, and Chris mentioned Nick Cannon at one point, all like, parenting is very much a topic of the
pop culture conversation. And now I just thought about Elon Musk, because Elon Musk is this guy who's he keeps saying that, you know, he feels like there's a population shortage and we should be really concerned about the lack of how people are having kids less, And actually he kind of ties it all together because his own father a few years ago had a kid in his seventies, because I guess his father.
There's a big study in Japan that the population shortage.
I don't know, so I want to ask you, and I think I'm paraphrasing Elon Musk and don't know what he's quoting. So, doctor Sterling, do you think there's I mean, we've talked about people having less kids. Is there a population decline in the US worldwide? Is it something you find concerning at all?
So we're seeing birth rates declined, we certainly are. You know, I think that the concerns that are being brought up about the decline and the birth rate or a lot of that has to do with, you know, socioeconomics, and I am not you know, I do not have the expertise to comment on what happens to a society when
the birth rate is declining. I just know from you know, my experience of the people that I see that the reason that the birth rate is declining is because people know that they are not going to be supported as new parents in the United States. They know that we do not have you know, universal low cost childcare where many other developed countries do. We do not have paternal leave after birth, and that's you know, there are I think it's forty percent of people are going back to
work two weeks after getting birth. I mean that is just, you know, it does not make sense. So what we see is when you do not support pregnant and postpartum people and you do not support new families, people are going to look at the situation and say, yeah, that's not for me. I'm not going to put myself through that. And I understand it as someone who loves my children.
I have three children. I love everything about it. I still one hundred percent understand why a lot of young people are saying it's not for me.
Interesting, so compelling, doctor, Thank you so much. And by the way, I know we gave social media a hard time, but I also know that you are terrific on social media and that's a great way for you to kind of teach the masses and talk to the masses. So where can we find you?
Yeah, so I'm on both TikTok and Instagram. I am doctor sterling Obi Juan, and yeah, I talk a lot about advanced maternal age because it's a something that's really near and dear to my heart, and I feel like there's a lot of scary stuff out there, but there's so much good about it.
So yeah, just for do you mind me asking how old you were when you say your advanced stage? How old you were when you had your last child?
Yeah? So I had my last child at thirty seven year old, just so.
The women out there can kind of feel what that what this means. I appreciate it, Doctor Sterling. Thank you so much for the insight, the knowledge. Truly enjoyed talking to you, and I feel like this won't be the last time we have you on the show.
No, I think we're calling up.
You may want to change your number, Doctor Storling, Thank you so much.
All right, no problem.
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