Computer Predicts The Age You Need To Start A Family

Trine Jensen-Burke

When and at what stage in our lives we start our families might not be entirely easy to plan – and just like with making plans in general, sometimes even the best-laid ones don’t even happen the way we anticipated them to.

But much as it might be frightening to think about, when it comes to our fertility, after a certain age, the window will start to close. More and more professionals are warning that women today are leaving it far too late before they start thinking about starting a family, a trend which has seen as many as one in ten couples currently seeking help with fertility issues.

Because while we think we are still young enough for a baby in our mid 30s, by the time that baby has arrived and we after a year or two start thinking it would be nice with another one, suddenly you are in your late 30s, or even early 40s, and getting pregnant again might not happen as easily as it did the first time around.

But now some Dutch scientists have created a computer model that can predict at what age you need to start having babies if you plan on one, two, three – or even more.

The model, which has crunched over 300 years worth of fertility data to come up with the age by which couples should start building a 1, 2 or 3, or 4-child family, with either a 50, 75 or 90% chance of success, taking into account both natural conception and conceiving through IVF.

Here’s how it works:

So, according to the chart above, if you want just one child, then you’d need to start a family at the age of 32 to have a 90% chance of conceiving (without IVF). But, if you want three babies, then the computer says the best time to start trying is at the age of 23 to have the same chance of success! Wow.

Note that the model assumes that couples “start trying for the next pregnancy 15 months after the birth of a child”, so couples would need to factor this in too.

This is what one of the creators of the model, Dik Habbema at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, had to say about the invention:

“We have tried to fill a missing link in the decision-making process. My son is 35 and many of his friends have a problem deciding when to have children because there are so many things they want to do.”

Professor of Andrology at the University of Sheffield in the UK, Dr Allan Pacey, explains to Netmums how we need to start a public debate around fertility and thinks charts like this one need to be more widely circulated.

“The table ought to be photocopied and put up on the clinic wall,” he said. We should also be aiming this at sixth formers and university students, so that they’re aware of how to plan their life. We haven’t got a time machine we can put people in… that’s just a blunt reality. Everyone thinks they can wait – this shows that you can’t.”

How do YOU feel about this? Is highlighting fertility and how it declines an important message to get across to young people, or does it just create unnecassary anxiety, when they might not yet be in a position to actually start trying for a family? Let us know in the comments or tweet us at @Herfamilydotie