system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If a woman's eggs are fully formed at birth, why does having children later in life increase the risk of developmental disabilities?
gpt
source: biomedical sciences major with a few courses in genetics.

the simple answer is, eggs aren't fully formed at birth. i believe they become arrested at... metaphase I? then after menstruation, eggs continue to go through the first phase of meiosis and stop again into meiosis II until fertilization does (or doesn't) happen. therefore, eggs still have a lot of work to do, and damage early on (the normal course of a woman's life) can affect them quite a bit later on down the road. the ova that a woman has at 35 have been exposed to a lot more chemicals and what-have-you han a man's sperm when he's 35, because he will constantly produce new sperm while her eggs have been beaten up by life for 35 years.

hope that makes sense.