Claire Danes Felt a ‘Funny Shame’ About Getting Pregnant at 44

“You’re pregnant again?” “You do know how that happens right?” “Wow, you’re going to have your hands full!” These are all things well-meaning (possibly?) people have said to me after I announced my third pregnancy. It’s hard to feel proud and excited for your new baby-to-be when everyone from strangers at Target to family members are judging and commenting on your body. So when Claire Danes revealed she felt a bit of “shame” when she accidentally got pregnant with her third baby, a daughter, at age 44, I understand a little how she felt. My situation wasn’t the same, as I was 28 when I was pregnant with my third, but I still know what it’s like to have everyone looking at you in a not-nice way.

The Beast in Me star, who is now 46, said on the SmartLess podcast that she and her husband Hugh Dancy “had this oopsy daisy third baby” in 2023.

“I was so old when that happened. I was 44,” Danes said, per Entertainment Weekly, adding that she “didn’t think it was possible” for her to get pregnant again. (She and Dancy are also parents to two sons, born in 2012 and 2018.)

“I did not foresee this at all. And it was weird. Suddenly, I felt like a funny shame,” she continued. “Like I was naughty. Like I had been caught fornicating past the point I was meant to. No, it was weird, and it was like I found an edge that I hadn’t been quite conscious of — like I was going outside of the parameters a little bit. That was wild.”

It can feel so discombobulating to be pregnant, especially when it opens up the floodgates and lowers other people’s parameters of your boundaries. Like, thinking they can touch your stomach, ask or comment on your sex life, and talk about your family planning. It’s awkward and weird, and I’m proud of Danes for being vulnerable about this sensitive topic. I can only imagine how Danes felt as an actress. At the young age of 44, she is practically put out to pasture in Hollywood’s standards. But compared to American women in general? She is not alone.

Nowadays, more and more women are getting pregnant later in life. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 9 percent of first births in the U.S. are to women over age 35, which is a 23 percent increase from 20 years ago. And in a March 2025 report by the National Center for Health Statistics, there were more births among women 40 and older than there were to teenage girls, for the first time ever.

Danes confirmed her pregnancy in early 2023, telling Mario Lopez for Access Hollywood, “This one was not intentional, but here we go. We’re thrilled.”

However, the Fleishman Is in Trouble star said that her then-4-year-old son Rowan was not thrilled. “He was categorically opposed to the idea [of a sibling],” she said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “He said, ‘Yeah, no, no, no. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. I like peace, Mama.’ I was like, ‘You like peace?’ That’s rich, because that dude does not shut up.”

In fact, Rowan wanted to give up his baby sister. “He said, ‘When it comes out of your tummy, we’ll give it to a family that doesn’t have a baby… ‘Cause we’re done,” Danes recalled. I mean, all older siblings feel like that at one time or another, don’t they?

It seems like everyone is happy now, despite her (and her son’s!) mixed feelings at the beginning.

These celebrity moms all welcomed their bundles of joy after 40.