Is it true that you’re less fertile in your early 20s?

[maybemaybeno]

I was reading a study that says fertility follows an ‘n’ shape curve for women, where you are most fertile in your mid-late 20s and there are lower levels of fertility associated with both younger women and those who are 30+.

Does anyone know if there’s any truth behind this, scientifically or anecdotally? I am early 20s and TTC cycle 2, hoping we won’t have any issues as such

I don’t think that’s true. As far as I know from 20-30 you are the most fertile. However here I am almost 21 years old and still not pregnant after 16 cycles.

The amount of (failed) pregnancies I had in my early 20s, my guess would be no! But I’m no scientist and haven’t read the research so can’t say anything about what the data shows.

Are you sure they weren’t just looking at fertility as number of women having babies at different ages? Women in early 20s usually extremely fertile and much lower rates of miscarriage and genetic abnormalities

I just fell down an internet rabbit hole and it said a couple of studies have suggested your mid late twenties is the best time with lower levels of fertility associated outside those times. It could well be wrong though!

I think it depends on what populations the studies are based on, if you take a load of smoking, drinking drug taking 20 year olds who don’t eat very well and compare with more settled and healthier living 25 year olds then possible the latter group would have higher fertility but most decent studies aim to exclude such confounding variables. Most reputable bodies literature suggests late teens- early 20s women have the highest fertility but there’s not much of a drop off until 30 and then obviously huge drop off comes around late thirties/40. There’s so much misinformation about when it comes to fertility. Basically really good chance of conceiving before 35, good chance 35-39 and then rapidly dwindling i.e a 38 year old has a astronomically higher chance of getting pregnant than a 44 year old but no one would guess that from all the celebs in their 40s who have had fertility treatment and the 50 year old celebs who have almost certainly used donor or frozen eggs

I think biologically, 18 is ideal, but socially an older mum is an advantage.