Hilary Swank is expecting her third child, the actress announced Wednesday. The two-time Academy Award winner, 52, shared the news in an Instagram video and said the baby is due in December, according to CBC.
Swank and her husband, Philip Schneider, are already parents to twins Aya and Ohm, whom she welcomed in 2023 at age 48. She has said she froze her eggs at 37.
In the announcement video, Swank's family dances in a dark room wearing glow sticks arranged to look like stick figures. Swank turns to reveal a small glow-stick figure inside a circle on her belly.
"A lot of people have been asking what project I'm doing next," she wrote in the caption, adding that "this one releases in December" alongside a baby angel emoji, CBC reports.
Why it matters
Swank's announcement adds her name to a small but growing group of public figures who have had children in their 50s, and it lands as pregnancies at older ages become more common across North America.
Statistics Canada data cited by CBC shows that in 2021, one in four mothers was 35 or older at the time of birth, up from 16 per cent two decades earlier. In the United States, federal figures show 21 per cent of births in 2023 were to people 35 and older, compared with nine per cent in 1990.
Medical experts caution that the trend comes with real risks, even as fertility technology improves.
What Swank has said about parenting later in life
Swank has spoken publicly about choosing to have children after establishing her career. In a 2025 interview with Women's Health, she said she is a different parent now than she would have been in her early 40s.
"I'm much more patient. I'm much more understanding," she said, according to CBC. She added that because her career is already established, she does not feel divided, and can be present and hands-on with her children.
Swank won her first Oscar at 25 for the 2000 film Boys Don't Cry, then took a second best actress award for 2004's Million Dollar Baby. More recently she appeared in the Netflix series Away and Showtime's Yellowjackets.
CBC also reports that in recent years she has lobbied California lawmakers to pass bills requiring manufacturers to disclose ingredients in diapers and prenatal vitamins.
The science and the cost behind later pregnancies
According to CBC, the large majority of pregnancies as late in life as Swank's are made possible through technology such as egg freezing, donor egg implantation and in vitro fertilization, which can run into tens of thousands of dollars.
People who can become pregnant are born with a fixed number of eggs, and both the quantity and quality decline with age. Dr. Prati Sharma, a reproductive endocrinologist in Toronto and past president of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, told CBC that this decline becomes "more dramatic after your mid-to-late 30s."
Sharma explained that eggs or embryos frozen at a younger age can be used later, because the uterus does not age at the same rate as the ovaries. Egg freezing involves extracting and preserving eggs while a patient is younger; they can be stored at fertility clinics for decades before being reimplanted.
Sharma also stressed that medical advances have not removed the risks that come with pregnancy at an advanced maternal age, defined as past 35. "Yes, science can make it possible for a woman to have a child at 52. That being said, it's not without risk," she told CBC, adding that clinics and doctors must assess each patient to confirm she is healthy enough to carry a pregnancy.
Cost remains a barrier. CBC reports that egg-freezing procedures in Canada averaged between $12,000 and $15,000 in 2024, putting them out of reach for some.
Other celebrities who had children in their 50s
Swank is not the first well-known figure to welcome a child after 50. CBC notes that pop star Janet Jackson had a child at 50 in 2017, and supermodel Naomi Campbell had her first at 50 in 2021 and a second at 53. Brigitte Nielsen, known for Beverly Hills Cop II, gave birth to her fifth child and only daughter in 2018 at 54.
More recently, Anne Hathaway, 43, announced in June that she was pregnant with her third child. She told Access Hollywood in July that she was "overjoyed," describing the odds of natural conception at that age as roughly one to two per cent and calling it a blessing she does not take for granted.
Swank's announcement did not specify how she conceived. CBC reports only that she has previously said she froze her eggs at 37.
What happens next: Swank has said the baby is due in December, so watch for further updates from the actress as the date approaches.
