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Age and Fertility: What We Can Do



Hong Kong actress and Cantopop singer, Miriam Yeung, pregnant at 38.
Feb 3, 01:06 pm

          Now that women make up over half of all college graduates entering the workforce it’s not surprising that young motherhood is on the decline. Today, women feel stuck between having a career or a family, and in no small part due to the warnings against older pregnancies: the health complications, the miscarriages, the infertility issues, the list goes on.

          Statistics have shown that fertility peaks between the ages of 22 to 26, when the average woman is at her physical peak and her egg count is still high. However, according to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, women aged 35 have about a 94% chance of conceiving after 3 years, women aged 38 have a 77% chance, and women aged 40-45 have a 30% chance of getting pregnant.

There’s a clear correlation between age and fertility, but it may not be as simple as we think. What’s really keeping us from having children into our late 30s, and what factors can we control in this race against the clock?

Three Fertility Factors

          In order for a woman to conceive there are three things her body needs: egg supply, egg health, and balanced hormones.

Egg Quantity:
          A woman is born with approximately two million eggs. By adolescence, that number drops to around 400,000 and once menstruation starts, women lose about 1,000 eggs each month. This means the more eggs a woman is born with, the more eggs she will have later in life.
          Not much is known about the factors controlling egg quantity, but some research has shown a correlation between egg and the negative effects of stress and weight gain.


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