Age and female fertility

A woman's fertility is in generally good quality from the late teens to early thirties, although it declines gradually over time.

[11] According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) over 80 out of every 100 women aged under 40 who have regular unprotected sexual intercourse will get pregnant within 1 year of trying.

Some experts suggested that the main change in fertility in the older women was the fact that it took them longer to conceive, not necessarily that they were significantly more unlikely to eventually succeed.

[16] The below is a table containing estimates of the percentage of women who, if starting to conceive at a certain age, will fail to obtain a live birth.

The most common methods of checking the status of the ovarian reserve is to perform a blood test on day 3 of the menstrual cycle to measure serum Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH) level, alternatively a blood test to measure the serum Anti-Müllerian Hormone (AMH) level can give similar information.

[19] It is important to recognize that a poor result from ovarian reserve testing does not signify an absolute inability to conceive and should not be the sole criterion considered to limit or deny access to infertility treatment.

[19] A study of a population of French women from 1670 and 1789 shows that those who married at age 20–24 had 7.0 children on average and 3.7% remained childless.

[23] Mapping of a woman's ovarian reserve, follicular dynamics and associated biomarkers can give an individual prognosis about future chances of pregnancy, facilitating an informed choice of when to have children.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) is an assisted reproductive technology used to treat infertility and to help families have offspring.

This gives women the ability to delay pregnancy and avoid many of the infertility problems that arise from germ cell deterioration.

[30] While chromosomal abnormalities are avoided with egg freezing, pregnancy at older age increases the risk of gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, preterm labor, and cesarean section regardless of conception method.

[31] A review in 2012 came to the result that therapeutic interventions to halt or reverse the process of reproductive ageing in women is limited, despite recent reports of the potential existence of stem cells which may be used to restore the ovarian reserve.

A study conducted by Gill et al. found an association of advanced maternal age >40 and birth defects such as cardiac issues, esophageal atresia, hypospadias, and craniosynostosis.

Cumulative percentage and average age for women reaching subfertility , sterility , irregular menstruation and menopause [ 5 ]
" Percentage of ovarian reserve related to increasing age. [ 17 ] The curve describes the percentage of ovarian reserve remaining at ages from birth to 55 years, based on the ADC model. 100% is taken to be the maximum ovarian reserve, occurring at 18–22 weeks post-conception. The percentages apply to all women whose ovarian reserve declines in line with a particular model where late and early menopause are associated with high and low peak NGF populations, respectively. It is estimated that for 95% of women by the age of 30 years only 12% of their maximum pre-birth NGF population is present and by the age of 40 years only 3% remains. At birth, women have all their follicles for folliculogenesis , and they steadily decline until menopause ." [ 17 ]