Although there have been recorded cases of women conceiving naturally in their early fifties, and of far older women getting pregnant after fertility treatment with donated eggs, these are rare exceptions. More usually, women will find that their fertility is in decline by the time they reach their forties. It is true that many older women get pregnant naturally and without any difficulty, but for others putting it off until their forties, or even their late thirties, may turn out to be a gamble they have lost.
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We are so accustomed to being in control of our fertility that it's easy to forget that this is a relatively new-found freedom. It wasn't until the introduction of the oral contraceptive pill in the 1960s that women gained real control over their reproductive systems. Society had changed, women had attained a greater degree of equality in education, the workforce and the home, but our fertility has remained one area in which we are far from equal. We are born with our lifetime's supply of eggs, whereas men can continue producing sperm throughout their lives, and although they experience some age-related decline in their fertility, it is far from absolute. Men may still be fathering children when they are drawing their pensions, but most women run out of viable eggs during their forties.
We are sometimes lulled into a false sense of security about our fertility, and having spent many years preventing pregnancy when we don't want it, we assume we will be able to exercise a similar level of control when we do want to get pregnant. For some women, this may turn out to be the ease, but others will find conceiving a child much more difficult.
'Education should actually inform women that they shouldn't leave it too late. In schools it's all about safe sex and contraception and you mustn't have a baby. Maybe we should be a bit pro-baby as well, preface the safe sex with,"Don't forget, if you want to have a baby, you should do it at a sensible age:" Susan, 34
The biological clock
The female biological clock begins ticking when we are born. We lose eggs from our ovaries throughout our childhood, and by the time we reach puberty and are able to conceive, our egg store has already been depleted. Our fertility declines throughout our adult lives, but every woman's biological clock runs at a different rate. One woman may get pregnant naturally in her early forties, while another may run out of eggs in her twenties, experiencing a premature menopause.
'People don't understand that your biological age can be very different to your reproductive age. At 29, my reproductive age was 42 and that's a big problem. People say they're going to delay it because they aren't ready and they think if they leave it until they are 38 or 39 that will be their reproductive age, but it's not necessarily the case: Rachel, 35
As recently as the 1970s the average age for having a first child was 25, but now most women have reached their late twenties by the time they give birth for the first time and many more delay motherhood until they reach their thirties. By this age, most of us are approaching the end of our optimum fertility, and there is a growing awareness that delaying motherhood may lead to fertility problems, as the biological clock starts to speed up as we get older.
The endless discussion in the media about the way female fertility declines with age could lead some women to seek medical solutions too quickly for what may be little more than a natural age-related delay in conception. However, there is also an assumption that assisted conception offers women a safety net when nature lets us down. In fact, fertility treatment is much less successful as you get older, and it cannot turn back the biological clock.
'When we got married there wasn't as much in the media about fertility as there is now. I wish that what's in the media now about the fact that you're much more fertile when you're younger and that having a baby isn't something that happens automatically had been higher profile then. I would have come off the pill on the wedding night' Lano, 37. To find out more, you can check out Things To Try To Get Pregnant.
