The Facts About Fertility

How often do you or your friend or your family member think that they have plenty of time to “make” babies? At AskHer, we encourage both women and men to access the right information and yet research has shown that women and men have a surprising lack of awareness on the facts of fertility and the limited time they have.

 How do I decide? Fertility affects both women and men but the choice is yours...

 Here are the facts of fertility:

Women

• are born with all the eggs they will ever have
• chance of pregnancy in any month is best before 25
• fertility starts to decline after 30
• at 35 the chance of conceiving is half that at 30
• and at 40 is half that at 35
• at 40 the IVF pregnancy rate is <10%
• numbers and quality of eggs drop at least 10 years before fertility is lost

Men

• male fertility declines from 35
• genetic material in sperm deteriorates with poor lifestyle
• associated with higher risk of miscarriage and birth abnormalities

1 in 6 couples experience fertility problems

• 30% is solely a male factor 
• 30% is solely a female factor 
• 40% involve both male and female

Men and women are having to compromise, to make a leap of faith that his job contract will be renewed next year, that the mortgage rate won’t go up, that the relationship will last under financial pressure, that her job will still be available after the maternity leave ends, and that they got their name down on the childcare list early enough.  The difficult decisions about family formation are deferred until ‘things improve’, but society and the economy don’t change.  Meanwhile the biological clock ticks relentlessly on.

More details can be found at - http://www.bpw.com.au/Projects/fertility.htm

Created: 08-September-2008
Modified: 08-September-2008