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14th April 2019
12:50pm BST

What did it find? Well, according to the chart, if you want just one baby, then you'd need to start a family at the age of 32 to have a 90% chance of conceiving (without IVF). But – and this might give some people a bit of a fright – if you want three babies then it says the best time to start trying is at the age of 23 to have the same chance of success!
The computer model assumes that couples “start trying for the next pregnancy on average 15 months after the birth of a child”, so couples need to factor this in too.
This is what Dik Habbema at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, one of the creators of the model, had to say:
"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."
Allan Pacey, professor of Andrology at the University of Sheffield in the UK explains further:
"What it is saying is that if you’re relaxed about having three children, you can wait until you’re 35, but you’ve got to start early to be certain."
Pacey thinks charts like these are important and that a conversation about fertility and family planning needs to happen.
"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."
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