How is female fertility affected by age?

After marriage, we usually want to decide the time of having birth for reasons. However, do you know that female fertility would decline from the age of 30? So what is the relationship between age and women’s fertility? Find below significant information for your answer.

Age is always considered an important factor for female fertility. The reproductive age in females is determined from the first ovulation and menstruation until menopause.

Fertility in females by age

Women’s fertility will begin to decline when they get older and could end 5-10 years prior menopause. This doesn’t mean that women which are 35 years old or older couldn’t have children; however, at that age, it will take more time and effort for women to get pregnant. Female fertility slows down from the age of 30 and tends to diminish significantly after age 35. This declination is related to the quantity and quality of eggs. Even if they don’t use any contraceptives, the likelihood of having children decreases with age. For most females, the best reproductive age is 23-30. Fertility will decrease by 2-3% per year when they reach the age of 35.

When an older woman gets pregnant, her fetus is very susceptible to chromosomal problems and is more prone to miscarriage. She may experience some problems such as adenomyosis, uterine fibroids, tubal or polyp diseases.

The fertilization success rate of women at the age of 30 is only 20%. That means only 20 in 100 women at the age of 30 would successfully get pregnant without much effort, the others have to try hard to have children. Women those are 40 years old or older only have 5% of 12% of reserve for each cycle. After the menopause, women will not be able to have a baby. However, with the development of modern medicine, some cases can still give birth by In vitro fertilization (IVF).

Ovaries also have “age”

That is why we should evaluate female fertility over the time. The fertilization and maternity process require healthy body with high-quality eggs. By the time the older women are, the weaker their ovaries become. A girl usually produces about 1 to 3,000,000 eggs. However, from puberty on, the number of eggs continuously decrease every year and there are only some hundreds of eggs in menopause period. In some cases, nearly a half of eggs of the ovaries are abnormal or carry genetic problems.

When the amount of follicles increase, the amount of eggs stored in the ovaries is reduced. Women have a large number of eggs, but the number of follicles tend to decrease over time. Therefore, when the number of eggs stored in the ovaries decreases, follicles will stimulate ovulation. The ovulation cycle lasts from 21-25 days and if this abnormalities occur, follicles will not be enough for ovulated eggs.