It’s not only women who worry about their biological clock. A recent study [1] presented last Tuesday at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Geneva (Switzerland), revealed that the chances for couples to have a baby diminish with the age of the male partner. This can have a considerable impact on their ability to have a family. Men who wait until the age of 40 to start a family could see their chances reduced by one-third.
Although the age of the male partner has little impact on the chances of having a baby in the case of women over 42, the situation is different for younger women. Women under 30 years of age with a male partner of 30 to 35 have a 73% chance of having a baby following IVF. This figure falls to 46% when the male partner is between 40 and 42 years old.
For Nick Macklon, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Southampton University, who did not participate in the study, these results should “help women to encourage their male partners to make a commitment. A certain number of studies have shown that one of the reasons why women are having babies later is because men are often reluctant to commit”.
The results of this study have yet to be confirmed but the authors invite doctors to take the man’s age into consideration, from this point onwards, when advising couples.
[1] The study conducted under the supervision of Dr. Laura Dodge from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA, analysed the IVF cycles carried out in a major IVF centre in the Boston area between 2000 and 2014, i.e. almost 19,000 cycles involving 7,753 couples. The female partners in these cycles were stratified according to four age groups: under 30, 30-35 years, 35-40 years and 40-42. The men were stratified in the same four-year groups with an additional category for males aged 42 and above.
The Guardian, Ian Sample (02/07/2017) ; Medical Press (03/07/2017) ; Daily Mail, Victoria Allen (02/07/2017)