What's the best age to have children?

From the Daily Mail UK

Britain's top maternity doctor has called for school children to be taught that the best age for a woman to have a baby is between 20 to 35.

Dr Anthony Falconer

Dr Tony Falconer, the new president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says women must be 'better at resolving the conflict' between their careers and family life.

He warned against the growing trend for women to have children later as they concentrate first on their careers, insisting it harmed fertility and would lead to conception problems.

'There's no doubt that between 30 and 35 is the time to have your children. We are building up a difficulty for ourselves as a society by people's expectations that they will wait until they are older. That's a very complex issue and it is a problem.'

Nicole Kidman, at 41 had daughter Sunday Rose

Many women increasingly leave having children until their late 30s or even 40s despite the higher health risks, encouraged by older celebrity mothers such as Madonna and Nicole Kidman.

Ever more sophisticated medical techniques mean many women rely on fertility treatment or IVF, believing they will still be able to conceive despite their advancing years.

But Dr Falconer issues a dire warning for would-be older mothers, saying: 'Reproductively, tragedies can result as a direct result of later motherhood...

'The incidence of tragic outcome and sadness will be more common the older the mother is.'

He warned that changes of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or stillbirth were around 30 per cent for a 40-year-old mother and 40 per cent for a 45-year-old.

Dr Falconer suggested informing school children about the risks of later motherhood would help teenage girls realise that it is not adviseable to put off having children for too long.

'When you're educating children about contraception and teenage pregnancy... you might tag onto that what the best age is to have children. As a 15-year-old girl, when you're doing your GCSE preparation, it might just sow a seed for them if you give them information at that stage that the best time to have children was 20-35.'

In the same interview, Dr Falconer warned that mothers giving birth at night are being put at risk because junior doctors with lesser experience are on duty.

'Obstetric care isn't the same at 3am as it is at 3pm, and it should be. This is a matter of huge concern,' he told The Guardian in his first interview as RCOG president.

'Care overnight isn't as robust as it is at it is at 9am or 2pm. It's not as good. At 2am, you do not have the same experience. One of the ironies of the health service, and this view is shared by very senior people, is this culture that the NHS basically runs at one level for 40 hours a week, and at a completely different level for the rest of the week. And when you are dealing with acute services that shouldn't happen.

He added: 'I don't want to frighten people and say that the quality of care at 2am is appalling, but it's not the same level. At night-time things go awry more often than they do in the daytime.'

Dr Falconer says more senior doctors should work overnight in hospitals

The Department of Health said there should be no difference in the quality of NHS maternity care.
'All mothers should expect consistently excellent maternity services, no matter what the time of day or night,' a spokesman said.

'Local maternity services should ensure there are appropriate numbers of professional and support staff, and staffing levels should be reviewed and audited annually.'

Dr Falconer is one of the UK's leading figure on women's health issues. He has worked as a consultant for Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust since 1986, and he was the lead clinician for gynaecological oncology and colposcopy services at the Trust from 2000 to 2007.


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