Over the past three decades, there has been a steady increase in the average age of parents. Advances in fertility science mean that people can, literally, put their eggs or sperm on ice and delay the start of parenthood. Many large companies, such as Apple, Facebook and Google, now offer egg freezing to employees as part of their healthcare package. Putting off having a baby has never been easier or more socially acceptable. But is it a good thing?
There are three things to consider. Will your child be healthy? Will you get pregnant? How much will it cost?
Parents have a moral obligation to give their child the best start in life. But children born to mothers over the age of 35 and fathers over the age of 45 are at greater risk of having genetic and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism, which arguably affects the child’s quality of life.
When to start
The scientific data is clear. The “right” age to have a child according to your biological clock is under 35 for women and under 40 for men.
More than 75% of young people underestimate the impact of age on male and female fertility – yet only 27% of doctors discuss this with patients aged 18-34 years who wish to delay childbearing for social reasons. There needs to be a greater awareness about the risks of delaying family planning, and family doctors should play a more proactive role in this. So, ultimately, if you want to have a child, the right age may be sooner than you thought.
Age and sperm
Men younger than 40 have a better chance of fathering a child than those older than 40. The quality of the sperm men produce seems to decline as they get older.
Most men make millions of new sperm every day, but men older than 40 have fewer healthy sperm than younger men. The amount of semen (the fluid that contains sperm) and sperm motility (ability to move towards an egg) decrease continually between the ages of 20 and 80.
Men age matters
We’ve all heard about men in their 80s and 90s fathering children, but this is rare. A father’s age also affects the chance of a couple getting pregnant. It takes longer for partners of men older than 40 years to conceive.
Assuming a woman is younger than 25; if her partner is also younger than 25, it takes an average of five months to get pregnant. If her partner is older than 40 years, it takes around two years, and even longer if he is older than 45.
Also, the risk of miscarriage is higher for women whose male partner is older than 45 , compared to men younger than 25 years of age.
For couples having IVF, the chance of having a baby is higher if the man is younger than 41 years of age.
Men often think that their age doesn’t matter when it comes to having a child and the biological clock is important only for the child-bearing mother. However, the number and quality of the sperm declines with your age.
Sperm health and fertility
Sperm health can depend on various factors which influence chances of fertility. In terms of quantity, fertility is most likely if the semen discharged in a single ejaculation contains at least 15 million sperm per milliliter. Too little sperm in an ejaculation might make it more difficult to get pregnant. When it comes to sperm motility, pregnancy is possible with less than 40% of the sperm in ejaculate moving, with 40% being the threshold since the more the better chances of fertility.
Life style factors that hinders fertility
There are a wide variety of risk factors that could potentially influence sperm quality. These include lifestyle factors such as cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, use of illicit drugs, obesity, psychological stress, APA, diet, and caffeine intake. The adverse effects of these factors could even become intensified from one generation to the next, and then passed on to the resulting offspring. However, their negative effects can be overcome to a large extent by behaviour modification and better lifestyle choices. In this manner, the harmful impact of these factors on the male reproductive potential could also be alleviated and thus result in a more favourable outcome.
The additive effects from the risk factors of male infertility such as smoking and alcohol intake on sperm parameters have been recognised. Moreover, the other groups of risk factors of male fertility, such as environmental and occupational factors, may also pose a simultaneous underlying threat to male fertility
