Is this common knowledge?

[MrsDoolittle]

I have just read this article in yesterday's Guardian and I am interested in your response to this. Guardian article
Is this common knowledge amongst us or not? I have discussed this with dh at length and we don't agree.
He always assumed we would have not fertility issues with having children in our 30's, I never shared this opinion.

yes it is common knowledge that delaying pg to mid-30's for women can lead to fertility problems

fertility in women decreases dramatically after the age of 32. i always thought that was common knowledge.

i for some reason always assumed that people knew it was a good idea to have your first child before you were thirty, simply to reduce the risk of complications.

Yes it is.

Although as more and more couples defer having children to their thirties, people seem to be forgetting it.

Yes, I knew this. Does your DH not believe it?

um, hate to contradict but i've looked into this fairly extensively and fertility doesn't drop dramatically that early (early-mid thirties). Not at all. you might take a couple of months longer to conceive, that's all. but if you are subfertile and only find out in your late thirties there is less time to do anything about it.

you forties are a totally different matter.

I think it was something I assumed more than something I knew, I guess. Dh the consummate planner wanted to see us financially stable and in a sizeable house of our own before we started having a children. This meant that I would have a child when I was 33 and 35 (I always said I would like to have my children before I was 35).
However, I wanted my children sooner and took things into my own hands 'a little' and became pregnant just before my 30th. I was very reluctant to take our fertility for granted like dh as I know many friends and colleagues who have had problems with conceiving or have not conceived atall. Dh, aware that I was eager to have children as soon as possible, refused to believe me feeling that I was goading him.
I take aloha's point though.

I'm just thinking that if it is common knowledge then why are so many people so disappointed by the two doctors?

Because the doctors used highly emotive terms like 'defying nature' and also the report kind of assumed that all women who have children later in life do so because they are selfish, career-crazed bitches, when actually, most just didn't find a man they felt able to have kids with until they were in their 30s (like me). And it's not particularly helpful IMO to harangue those women in emotive ways. Also, it suggested decisions about having children are entirely in the hands of women, but actually, men have something to do with it to!
However, I do think that anyone who is in a stable relationship with someone they want to have kids with and the man wants kids too, then you are totally insane to put it off for years and years until you are much past your mid-thirties. But I think that applies to so few women it's hardly worth mentioning. However, I suppose knowledge is power, just wish it was put over less emotively and with more understanding of the realities of most women's lives.

I don't think it is common knowledge that fertility treatment is effectively not possible past 40. I certainly didn;t know that.

well, it may sound smug to some, but personally i think that 'taking a few months longer to concieve' sounds like fertility has decreased to me.

I WISH I could have had kids in my 20s. I really do. But when I was 27 and broached the subject with my then husband - who was 4 years older - it became clear that he wasn't going to want kids, any kids, with anyone. We'd met when we were 21 and kids were one of those 'we're young, we'll think of it later'. But when later arrived, his answer was no. So we divorced. And I didn't find a partner who wanted to commit to a family together till I was 31.

Far from being a 'career' woman who 'wants it all' - since when was a roof over your head, heat, and shoes on your feet wanting it all? - I work b/c I have to.

I'm 34 and pregnant w/no. 2. Hats off to all those women who have kids over 40, but I'm 6 years under that and feel like a creaky old woman this time round.

I think you are right aloha.
However, the point was also made in the article that these are doctors and not politicians, I think it became obvious that they were saying things as they saw it, not necessarily to be diplomatic. I know many, many doctors and it is true that a large number of them don't have all the social skills required to converse empathetically with their patients, those that do are few and far between they are highly prized.
Please don't assume I am being derogatory, I'm not, I understand it's hard to be all things to all men, so to speak.

I'm pregnant with my second, I'm 32. I was an 'elderly prima gravida'. I often wondered how come I'm so 'old' having children when I feel that I have worked hard at my career, simply to give me the freedom to have children and them opportunities.
Like you say expat, it was never a case of 'having it all'. Unfortunately this, I believe, is an old fashioned opinion held by some.

Hi I was 39 when I had DS. It was not an active choice I just did n't meet my husband until I was 35 and by the time we'd decided to commit to each other and got married I was 38 when I concieved (2nd go so that proves that stats are only generalisations and each person is different. Just before I met DH I had had a blood test to check my fertility as I had ahd PCOS and decided that I would have a child on my own if I hadn't met a partner by the time I was forty. I have a number of friends who have similar stories. my friends who had fertility problems were all trying to conceive in their late 20's early 30's.

I think the article used very emotive language which is not appropriate in a "scientific" journal but the facts are true however as I said stats are generalisations and each individual is different.

Stitch, but it's hardly a 'dramatic' drop. In fact, you are really no more likely to be infertile (ie unable to have children) at 35 than at 25. It just might - might - take you a couple of cycles longer, that is all. Of course, having your first child at 38 may mean you don't have as many children as you would like (though I do know somone who had three at 40+) and if you do find out you have fertility problems, which you may well have had at 28, you have less time to wait or get treatment.
But it isn't true to say that fertility dramatically falls in your early-mid thirties.

I understood that it was in your late thirties that your fertility started to decline "dramatically". 38+ has been quoted at me.

Miscarriage rates increase and odds reduce on having a child with downs syndrome etc as you get older. I had heard it was more difficult to concieve after the age of 40. The usual pg risks increase as you get older too.

I read somewhere (maybe about five years ago) that they're doing research into older men and the risks of DS. All the data on it relates to older women and they've assumed that the problem of the mother being older is key, but then they realised that actually, most older mothers are with older fathers, and that therefore might influence the chances of DS as well - it seems incredible that they'd not done any serious research into father's age as a factor before.

Yes, I'd say that from what I've read and the people I've spoken to - in general by your late thirties - 38+ - fertility does decline. However up to nearly 70% of 40 year olds are probably still fertile, though it is true that miscarriage rates rise pretty steeply around this time. Go past there though and things get very shaky. By 42 the game is up for most women. But of course, not all. It's very, very variable. When I got pregnant at 40 it could not possibly have happened faster. I mean, not possibly!
I don't actually dispute that warning women that fertility declines as you get older and to think about it is a good thing. I agree it is. Just I dislike the climate of blame that goes with it. Just because you don't want to have kids with a man you know you aren't going to stay with or won't make a good parent, doesn't mean you are selfish or irresponsible IMO. Nor does it make you a 'nature defier'!

I mean fertility does decline dramatically after that. It declines very, very gently through your late twenties and thirties, but not enough usually to actually prevent you having a baby.

Nature defier? Does Matthew Hopkins write for the BMJ now?

I went through fertility treatment, and was told by my doctors that fertility declines noticeably at 35, and dramatically at 42.

Some people can have children later in life natually like Cherie Blair, but she is the exception rather than the rule. I think people who delay having children assume that if they can't conceive naturally, fertility treatment is almost guaranteed effective. They also look to many people in the public eye who have children in their late 40's and early 50's (jane seymour, gina davis, etc) and think that it's possible to have a baby if they're given fertility treatment. It's misleading because it's almost guaranteed that those women have used egg donors. I think that causes women to assume (and misjudge) how much time they have biologically to be mothers.

Given that we become fertile at about age - what - 14? I assume that biologically that's when we're meant to start. However, we don't live lives entirely dictated by biology any more (hence why these aren't the Middle Ages) and hence why we don't, generally, start at 14.

I never assumed that by delaying pregnancy until my (early) 30s I wouldn't have problems (I didn't) - but then again, my bro and his wife started trying in their mid-twenties, and six years later have adopted two gorgeous kids, having found out that they are infertile. Equally I have friends who 'waited' til their late 30s and then found out they couldn't conceive; if by 'waited' we mean 'didn't meet the man they wanted to have children with until then'. In which case biology has surely failed us by making so many twenty-something blokes be such dickheads

I think having a baby late is only a problem if you find you have fertility problems as you have left yourself little time to sort them out. Anyway, most people have babies late because they haven't met the father of their children yet. At least that is the case for most of my friends.