Experts have revealed the ideal age at which women should have a baby, or alternatively freeze their eggs.
Talking to The Daily Record, medical director of the Midland Fertility Clinic, Dr Gillian Lockwood, said that having a baby at 25 is the optimum age.
This is because fertility is at its highest and the risk of miscarriage and genetic conditions is lowest.
“It may not be true that women should be having babies at the time of the GCSEs but they shouldn’t leave it much later than graduation,” Dr Lockwood explained.
“Age 25 is exactly the time when today’s young women have left university, are trying to get off on a good career, trying to pay back their student loans, trying to find someone who wants to have babies with them and trying to get on the housing ladder.”
While most women opt to have babies closer to or around the age of 30 nowadays, Dr Lockwood says that the success rate of fertility rapidly decreases as age increases. Waiting until 40 to conceive a child could mean patients would have to opt for IVF.
“The problem we have here is that women on the outside are shiny, young and youthful and on the inside their ovaries know exactly what it says on their birth certificate. As I always tell my patients – you cannot Botox your ovaries.”
And if you don’t fancy starting a family at 25, which for many still feels too early, Dr Lockwood strongly suggests freezing eggs.
