What is the “right” age for having children?
Over the past three decades, the average age of parents has steadily increased. Advances in fertility science have allowed people to freeze their eggs or sperm, thereby delaying the onset of parenthood. Many large companies, such as Apple, Facebook and Google, now offer their employees the option of freezing their gametes, as part of their healthcare program. It has never been so easy and socially acceptable to delay the birth of a child. But is it a good thing?
Three points are to be considered. Will your child be healthy? Are you going to get pregnant? How much will it cost you?
Parents have a moral obligation to give their child the best possible start in life. But children born to mothers over 35 and fathers over 45 are more likely than others to be affected by genetic and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia and autism. Which could obviously affect their quality of life.
The biological clock never stops… Charlotte Walker, Author provided
On the other hand, older parents are more likely to need to use assisted reproduction techniques such as in vitro fertilization (IVF). However, there is a link between the use of these techniques and the risks of early delivery or lower birth weight. Babies born through in vitro fertilization are also more vulnerable to cardiovascular and metabolic disease later in life.
Some of these age-related risks may be reduced if expectant parents freeze their eggs or sperm when they are still young. On the other hand, those linked to IVF remain. In addition, when IVF is performed with frozen eggs, the technique used is intracytoplasmic sperm injection, which involves injecting the sperm into the egg. This can increase the risk of birth defects in children. The use of intracytoplasmic sperm injection is also more common in older men because their sperm motility is low. Again, this is not to ensure that your unborn child has the best possible start in life.
So you decided to wait
If you want to wait before having children, you are not alone in this case.
Most couples manage to induce pregnancy after trying for a year. Still, one in seven couples have difficulty conceiving – and, in this regard, age is an important factor. Indeed, one in six women aged 35 to 39 will not be able to get pregnant after one year. And if her partner is over 40, that number drops to more than one in four women.
IVF is considered by many to be a foolproof method of conception, but its success is also dependent on the age of the couples who use it. For a woman who uses her own eggs, the success of IVF after 40 years is less than 10%.
A computer model recently simulated the risks inherent in choosing to delay parenthood. If a 30-year-old woman decides to delay having a baby until she is 35, her chances of getting pregnant are reduced by 9%. However, in this case, IVF will only compensate for this risk by 4%.
You can decide to freeze your eggs. Perfect. But women produce less of it as they age. So older women may need more cycles of hormone stimulation to manage to store the eight to ten eggs needed for a reasonable chance of a successful birth – which can be extremely expensive (Editor’s note: in France, health insurance covers up to four IVFs before age 43, for an average unit cost estimated at 4,100 euros).
How much will it cost you?
Although IVF itself is expensive, there are other significant indirect costs when deciding to have a child.
The “maternity wage penalty” is often cited in economic discussions about the effect of motherhood on women’s careers. This expression refers to the loss of income that women face as a result of pregnancy and then maternity. There is some evidence to suggest that women can earn more by delaying childbearing in their early 20s to early 30s.
But this wage penalty does not appear to be gender specific. Following the introduction of parental leave for fathers by the Norwegian government in 1993, a study revealed a similar effect (negative effect on the income of fathers who stay at home.
Ultimately, if you choose to start a family, you will experience a drop in income.
When to start
The science is clear. If we take the biological clock into account, the “right” age to have a child is under 35 for women and under 40 for men.
Over 75% of young people underestimate the impact of age on male and female fertility. However, only 27% of doctors broached the subject with their patients aged 18 to 34 who spoke of their wish to delay having a child for social reasons. Greater awareness of the risks of delaying parenthood is therefore needed, and family physicians should play a more proactive role in this regard.
Ultimately, if you want to have a child, the ideal age might be earlier than you think …
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