As a lot of women know, trying to conceive, being pregnant, and giving birth seem to come with a lot of rules and advice. These biological acts also come with a whole host of myths and urban legends of their own.

Raleigh, North Carolina-based OB-GYN, Kamm McKenzie, has spent part of her career dispelling some of these myths. According to Dr. McKenzie, while many people believe that there’s a hard end date for when women are capable of conceiving a child, the reality is that it’s not that simple. On her site, she writes, “There is no exact threshold after which conceiving is less likely. We do start to see a steeper decline in fertility in women in their late 30s and 40s. Conception rates also seem to decline as the man in the relationship gets further beyond age 40” (via Kamm McKenzie OBGYN).

That’s not the only thing most of us get wrong about fertility and pregnancy. While many of us believe a woman’s uterus can get “too old” to carry a baby, the reality is that this simply isn’t true.

A uterus can carry a baby pretty much anytime

It turns out that the myth that uteruses can no longer carry a child past a certain age are simply untrue. Reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist Dr. Lucky Sekhon told InStyle that women can even carry babies after they have begun menopause.

“We know this from the various women we treat who use donor eggs or come back later in life to use their own eggs/embryos frozen from when they were younger. The chance of an embryo implanting is not impacted by your age at the time the embryo is transferred.”

This has even been backed up by a study conducted by the University of Southern California (via USC News). Researchers Mark Sauer and Richard Paulson confirmed that women in their 50s can be successfully implanted with donor embryos.

Sauer explained, “We have once again extended the age for successful implantation and pregnancy well beyond the norm into what I would consider a much more advanced reproduction age group. I think what’s striking about this study is that women even in their 50s, when well selected, are able to enjoy a very high implantation and pregnancy rate.”

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