NHS chief warns women not to wait until 30 to have baby as country faces a fertility timebomb

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NHS chief warns women not to wait until 30 to have baby as country faces a fertility timebomb

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3104023/NHS-chief-warns-women-not-wait-30-baby-country-faces-fertility-timebomb.html

^One of Britain’s top NHS fertility specialists last night issued a stark warning to women: Start trying for a baby before you’re 30 – or risk never having children.

In a strongly worded letter to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, consultant gynaecologist Professor Geeta Nargund has also demanded that teenagers are taught about the dangers of delaying parenthood, because of the spiralling cost to the taxpayer of IVF for women in their late 30s and 40s.^

Professor Nargund cites the agony of a growing number of women left childless as a key reason why fertility lessons must be included in the national curriculum.

Good advice or not?
I remember reading how chances of conceiving can drop off a cliff for some as 40 approaches but then a lot of people aren't in a position to have children in their mid to late 20s.

Useless until the message starts getting through to men, too.

Agree, Slug's post is spot on! And French gov managed to incentivise women to have more kids - thro tax breaks/v hesvily subsidized childcare so somrthing cd be done here to pressure/support businesses to enable women to step off career ladder sooner. I look around my office and am one of v few 40- something mothers in relatively aenior Lon role, more so on the commute in. Others my age have no kids like my crappy egomaniacal boss or are men Or are men or women in their 20s/early 30s. It's actually really obviogs. Theres a huge dearth of mothers of this age. Why is it not talked anout so much more? Or even noticed? Sorry, off track a little but having kids earlier relates to this and cd potentially devastate a career even more

Professor Nurgand was almost certainly on a higher than national average salary for several years before she started her family at 29.

True, Yonic - good point on salary there. However, it tends to be those who aspire to a higher salary that think that not having one means a family is impossible. Being brought up on a lot less but with family as a very important thing, I think has given me different priorities.

I am not sure what the message to men would be. I feel like most of them already know that women are more fertile under age 30 and will actively try to find a woman in that age range if they want to be fathers.

Does men's fertility decrease dramatically so early as well? That would be a different story.

It seems that young women should indeed be made aware of this. They should also know that men who are stringing them along and refusing to settle down and start a family have the unfair advantage of being able to try with someone else long afterwards. I remember a colleague long ago telling me that women and men have different timelines and I needed to know that. It was invaluable advice.

' I feel like most of them already know that women are more fertile under age 30 '

There are plenty of people on this very thread who have posted of male partners who were not aware of this at all.

If any age is in general consciousness as that of fertility decline, I'd say it was 35, not 30.

I do think it makes sense to include it in the school curriculum for both men and women and the combination of the two (average age difference at marriage is now less than two years and older sperm along with older eggs produces a greater effect)

this is one of those 'common sense ' articles it is riskier concieving over 35, thats why at one time 35 +first time mums were expected to go into hospital to give birth, not sure if thats the case now. it heightens the risk of downs etc i dont think 'dont have kids over 30' is a good message but 'if you do have kids over 30 be fully aware of the risks' , plus some women become more tired easily as theyage, imagine things like that exasperated by pregnancy. Also as teen mother i was well versed about risks ,it goes both ways.

Actually I think it should be emphasised that men don't get off scot-free when it comes to fertility after 30. True, a man's fertility doesn't come to a total stop at 50-odd like a woman's. But sperm quality does decline steadily with age, which increases the risk not only of sub-fertility but of chromosomal and genetic abnormalities (there is some evidence that autism is more likely in children born to older fathers). Professor Nargund must be well aware that male factor issues are in play in at least half of her cases. And while there may be a few 70-plus dads around, men over 60 are far less likely to father children than men of 30.

I conceived my two DC really easily, had healthy pregnancies etc, at 33 and 36. But I needed c-sections with both of them and can't help wondering if I'd have had a better chance of a natural birth if I'd been 23 rather than 33 first time round. I've been reading about guinea pigs and how if you want to breed from them you need to do it before they're a year old - apparently their pelvic joints stiffen up after this age which makes it harder for them to give birth. Wonder if that happens with humans as well?

Can't bring myself to read the article because it's in the Daily Fail*, but I get the gist.

I agree with everyone who said there's no point women-bashing. Men need educating too. And parents need more support from the government and employers when it comes to taking time out of careers to have kids - and then having the option of flexible working if possible.

The article is actually very relevant to me because I'm 29. DH and I have been talking about TTC for a while. I had to come off some medication I had been taking long-term, which was a gradual process, and I was getting there, but then I was made redundant. Frankly the prospect of having to find a job while pregnant - and then going on maternity leave when I've barely started the job - is hardly filling me with impatience to get knocked up. My revised plan is to get a new job, celebrate my 30th birthday in style (and get very drunk, since I won't be pregnant) THEN start TTC. If the Daily Mail want to judge me for that, they can fuck right off.

In my head the "cut off" is 35, which sounds about right based on the statistics shared by a helpful PP. I want 2 kids so if I dont hang around I think that's still achievable, with a bit of luck.

• Thanks to the PP who pointed out this irony: "I also love the fact that this article appeared next to a photo of SamCam in a bikini. That would be the SamCam who had her DC at 31, 33, 35 and 37, would it?" Typical!

I agree with those who say that most people who have fertility issues would have had them at any age. It isn't entirely true for me - I might have been OK if I had got pregnant before getting cancer at 21, but almost everyone I know who has had trouble (and I know quite a few people in this situation as you tend to when you are in it yourself), has had problems fairly young in the scheme of things and the problems they have had were non-age related (or were male issues).

That said, I do think the stories of celebrities having babies in their mid- and late-40s do give the impression that perhaps fertility must be somehow improving as we are looking and feeling younger at older ages. Of course, the truth is that many of those celebrities will have used donor eggs or, at the very least, some form of IVF to improve their chances.

Oh, and when I eventually gave birth at 41 following an EMCS, a ob-gyn consultant we talked to subsequently was astonished I hadn't been referred for a ELCS as his view was that first time mothers over 40 would have stiffer pelvises (paraphrasing here) and natural birth would be very difficult as wol1968 suggests.

I had all my three in my 20s (22,23 & 29) but it was more by luck than judgement

Emma I think the telegraph covered it too if you don't want to click on a DM link.

And Yy to FAMD- of the four couples I know who had IVF, three started trying before the woman was 30 and it's likely their issues were not linked to age.

Women should have children when they are good and ready for them and not be held hostage by finances or biology (or lack of information). Reproductive technology should be about extending choices. Unfortunately it's currently mostly about profits.

So, women have to not have children while they're young as they'll end up on benefits, without a career etc etc and they've not to have children when they're older as their eggs are a bit dodgy etc etc . But if they have them in the in between bit, it's okay and we'll ignore the lack of men wanting to settle down at this stage, we'll ignore the childcare costs, the implications on stalling a career etc etc.

And the fertility timebomb ( hyperbole, much ? ) will be the fault of women and nothing at all to do with the fact that society can't get it's arse together to make it possible to have a baby without it having such a huge social and economic impact on women even though men manage ok ?

As for the agony of women who find themselves infertile due to their age, whilst it's undoubtedly true that it's extremely distressing for many women, perhaps it would be easier if we stopped valuing and then devaluing women for their ability to reproduce and allowed these women the time and space to accept that they are not lesser women simply due to their infertility.

Exactly blistory and while we're at it, maybe point out that as women now have a choice not to have children, and many are without the social and societal pressures of having children, that maybe they just decided to give motherhood a miss. They didn't 'leave it too late' or were 'career women' just women who looked at what society thinks of mothers and the sacrifices motherhood entails and decided it wasn't for them. Women shouldn't be forced to have children through fear or the 'just in case'. I didn't want children in my '20's. I didn't know if I would ever want them. By the time I did want them, I was over 30, as was my dh,but he wasn't ready and was ambivalent about wanting them at all. Should I have tricked him or left him in search of another man that would have taken another 2 years? He became decidedly less ambivalent when I told him we had no future if he didn't want children and now we have 2 dc's born when I was 35 and 37. Pregnant after 2 tries each, quick labours and natural births. I do think we need to tell girls that they shouldn't hang around waiting for men to change their mind if they want children, and that 'the one' is a myth. There will be another man who wants what you want.

Thanks Yonic, not a fan of the Torygraph either, but definitely not as bad as the Daily Fail! I think the story made its way around the internet actually. DH (who is not convinced we should wait until I've found a job and celebrated my birthday!) sent me a link to the story on Sky or something... I deleted it

And this is why I like the Guardian - here's their take on the story:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/01/men-30s-arent-pressured-kids-answer-not-biological

The figures in the Guardian are misleading. None of them compare women at their most fertile age with women later.

The issue with education is that it all about educating young people about how not to have a baby. It doesn't really explore how to go about having one, and how age, smoking and other issues have an impact on fertility for both men and women.

There is an assumption of fertility. It doesn't prepare people for issues like infertility and miscarriage. A lot if it seems to be about encouraging women who are considered undesirable to not have children.

I was listening to Germaine Greer talk about the history of family planning, and how that has globally been a euphemism for preventing women from getting pregnant, often regardless of their wishes, including through use of contraception that has been dangerous to their health.

I don't believe there is any kind of timebomb, but I'm sick of women being told to get pregnant or not get pregnant for some kind of wider social reason rather than about the woman's own life plans and opportunities.

I think Glossy says it well. We don't make it easy as a society for younger women to have babies. If we did, they might. I still think, for example, company creches would revolutionise childcare and thus wage levels, earning power and possibly also the average child-having age.

In my early twenties, I earned minimum wage temping or was at college/uni, renting various flats usually every 12 months. I had no stability. I got my MA, started my own business and married DH at 31, bought a house and was diagnosed with PCOS at 32, had a miscarriage at 33 and am now due with our first in three weeks at age 34. Ideal? No. But it was the best I could do. If I'd started in my 20s, I'd've been a single mother on benefits and pilloried in the press for it. Women can't win.

Prof Nargund is director of a private fertility clinic. Just pointing it out. Also there have been serious epidemiology studies showing fertility doesn't diminish til late 30s.

Wol - anecdata, I know, but I had both of mine vaginally at 40 and 45. Our pelvises don't fuse like guineapigs' do./

Wol - anecdata, I know, but I had both of mine vaginally at 40 and 45. Our pelvises don't fuse like guineapigs' do.