Can we stop "urging" women to get pregnant before it's "too late"?

Enough with the patronising advice, okay?

British journalist Sarah Ivens went public this week about her struggle to fall pregnant. Ivens was 34 when she started trying for children, and it was years before she had two healthy babies. People were telling her – at the age of 34 – that she’d  left it “quite late”, and now she’s urging other women not to wait as long as she did.

Pregnancy expert Zita West has weighed in on Ivens’ story, saying modern life has done women a “disservice”. She claims that women in their thirties are “shocked” if they can’t have a baby when they’re planning to. West delivers the startling fact that female fertility starts to decline at the age of 35. Because, apparently, most women have no idea about this kind of thing.

I mean, really. Are there any women not aware of the fact that they’re less fertile in their late thirties? We’re beaten over the head with it almost every day. The media is bursting with stories about older women, celebrities or otherwise, battling with fertility issues. IVF, egg donation, surrogate mums…

Does any woman nowadays assume she will get to her late thirties and immediately fall pregnant the minute she wants to? I think the opposite is true. I think a lot of women spend much of their thirties worrying that if they don’t hurry up and get pregnant, they will have missed their chance.

And that’s not necessarily the case.

I got pregnant when I was 36 after trying for only about two months. When I was 39, I tried to get pregnant again, and this time it happened after trying for only about a month.

I'm hesitant to write that because I know how much some women struggle to conceive. Whenever I talk to people about my pregnancies, I always begin by saying, "I know I was really lucky..." I don't want to make anyone feel bad by sharing my experience. But obviously, I'm not the only woman who has managed to get pregnant without too much trouble in her late thirties. I wonder if other women, like me, don't like to talk about it openly because it is such a sensitive subject for some people.

The truth is, fertility rates for women in their late thirties aren't that terrifying. A recent European study  found that if women aged 35 to 39 have sex at least twice a week, more than 80 per cent of them will conceive within a year. As for women who start trying for a baby at the age of 40, research shows that the majority of them will still be able to get pregnant naturally.

There's no doubt that fertility does decline after the age of 35. But couples can, and do, have battles with infertility at any age.

Most women are going to be able to have babies in their late 30s, if they want to. That means these scare stories don't apply to most women. It just puts them under added pressure when they already have enough pressure in their lives.

Women don't need to be constantly "urged" to have babies before it's too late. I think we can safely assume now that women are aware of the basic facts about fertility. We take these facts into account, along with other things like... oh, I don't know, feeling ready to have children, and being in a loving, steady relationship with someone who also feels ready to have children.

It's important that women keep sharing their stories about their struggles to get pregnant. But it would be nice if the media could ease up a bit on the patronising advice.

Did you feel under pressure to start trying for a baby before you hit your mid-thirties?

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