26 March 2006
By DEIDRE MUSSEN
Women who want to delay having babies until their thirties are being urged to think again after stunning new research which reveals that infertility rates nearly double after the age of 26.
That’s almost 10 years earlier than the age women have been told they may start having problems conceiving.
It has sparked fresh concerns that delayed childbearing will significantly affect New Zealand’s future and prompted calls for government action.
The Fertility NZ commissioned study of 1000 women showed nearly one in five aged 27-plus had fertility problems - defined as the inability to conceive after a year of trying, or to carry a baby to term.
The survey found that women aged 24-26 had a 10 per cent infertility rate. That jumped to 18 per cent in the 27- to 29-year age bracket and 21 per cent for 30- to 34-year-olds. Fertility NZ director Sian Harcourt was stunned at the results.
“Women are lulled into a false sense of security in thinking they’ve got until 35 before they need to start worrying about having babies but that’s not so,” she said.
The survey group were all over 18 and included 710 mothers.
Almost all (90 per cent) of the women aged 60-plus in the study started their families in their 20s but only 36 per cent of those aged less than 30 had had babies.
“The majority of women are now leaving childbirth to their 30s so the window of opportunity to try naturally and then consider or receive fertility treatment - if needed - is uncomfortably small,” Harcourt said.
“There is going to be a whole bunch of people who would have been successful if they had their family earlier, but they will end up childless.”
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