When should women start having children?

"If you want to have two children and do not accept in vitro fertilization, you should start getting pregnant at the age of 27," he said. That is the answer of scientists at Erasmus Medical University, Netherlands, to the question " When do we start having children to ensure career development?" There are many couples worrying today.

The most reasonable time of pregnant women

Researchers determined that the nature of the question is: when should women begin to become pregnant?This depends on the number of children they want to have and whether they accept in vitro fertilization. On the other hand, the researchers noted that men's fertility may also vary with age but not as much as women do, so the study focuses on women, which in turn leads to Age of marriage and having children.

Preliminary results show that couples who want to have 1 child (90% rate) and do not want to fertilize in vitro, the woman should be pregnant later than 32 years old . Meanwhile, couples who want to have 2 children (90%) and do not want to fertilize in vitro are beginning to conceive the first child at age 27 at the latest.

When should I have children?

In the study, the group created a computer model that simulated 10,000 couples who wanted to become pregnant. This model calculates the pregnancy rate of couples on a given month, the rate of miscarriage and the rate of infertility. On the other hand, this model also examines cases where some couples cannot have children and they will use in vitro fertilization (IVF).

If you want to have 2 children without using in vitro fertilization, you should start your pregnancy at 27 years old.

Results: couples who do not want to use IVF and require a 75% chance of having a baby can begin pregnancy at the age of 37 at the age of 1 if they want 1 child, 34 years old if they want 2 children and 31 years old if you want 3 children. Couples who accept IVF and want to get the desired number of children at a rate of 90% should start becoming pregnant at age 35 if they want 1 child, 31 years if they want 2 and 28 years for 3 children.

The team commented: "Couples who want to have 2 children (90% rate) will be surprised at this conclusion because they must start having children at the age of 31 (if accepting IVF) and as early as 27 years old (if IVF is not accepted), on the other hand, this is a positive result for couples who only want to have 1 child or accept IVF. "

Misconceptions about fertility

According to Evelyn Mok-Lin, professor of endocrinology at the Institute of Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, the Dutch team's estimates are reasonable. However, research is still not perfect because there are slight differences between the Netherlands, the US and other countries in terms of medical qualifications, so it is possible that the age of children for women in the US may be later than Netherlands.

Typically, the percentage of a 25-year-old female who performs IVF successfully in the United States is 50-60%, higher than 32% in the Netherlands. In addition, American women who have difficulty in natural pregnancies often begin to seek IVF earlier than the hypothetical way in the research model. Therefore, the time of having children for women in the United States may be later.

Dr Melissa Goist, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Ohio State University Medical Center, said that although Dutch researchers use the information and model to produce fairly accurate results, it does hard to apply in practice. He said : "I cannot tell a 27-year-old patient that she should marry because she wants to have 3 children. There are too many factors affecting family planning. Women often start bringing When they feel ready, you can't live a life based on a calculation model. "

However, the researchers all commented that people often misunderstand their fertility when they were young. According to previous surveys, many young people are optimistic that they always have the opportunity to conceive after age 35. Therefore, the results of this study can "help increase people's awareness of fertility". Agreeing with this view, Professor Mok-Lin shared: "I often see the astonishment of 40-year-old female patients when they know that at their age, abnormalities in the development process of eggs are 60% ".