If you are facing the end of your 20s and still haven't met Mr. Right, or in your mid 30s and only now ready to face the responsibility that is motherhood, this will be a nice read for you.

According to the UK Independent, your 30s are your golden years for bringing babies into this world – especially if you want them to be intelligent and do well for themselves.

In fact, data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a long-running programme which tracks the development of 18,000 British children, was used to examine the impact of a mother’s age on their child. Based on this, researchers at the London School of Economics established children born to mothers in their thirties achieved the highest cognitive scores, outperforming those children born to twenty-something-year-old mothers and just higher than mothers in their forties.

Take that, biological clock!

This is what the study authors had to say about their finds, which were published in the journal of Biodemography and Social Biology.

"First-time mothers in their thirties are likely to be more educated, have higher incomes, are more likely to be in stable relationships, have healthier lifestyles, seek prenatal care earlier, and have planned their pregnancies," researcher Alice Goisis told the Independent. "While women in their forties are attentive to their children in similar ways, they are less likely to play with their kids than younger mothers. In turn, these babies will have more of a chance of becoming obese later in life."

What age were YOU when your fist baby was born? How – if it did – did you age affect you and the way you mothered? Let us know in the comments or tweet us at @Herfamilydotie