Is it possible to have a baby in your 40s?

The answer is yes, it is possible. Harder, but possible. Here's what the experts say....

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Turning 40 is weird. It feels like a bigger deal than 30 and (if you’re like me) you really just don’t feel that old. Which is why finding out that, while your youthfulness is still intact, as a woman, your fertility is less so – can be a shock.

The facts: We’re born with all of the eggs we’ll ever have. In your mid-20s you have a 25–30% chance of getting pregnant every month. In your 30s it’s roughly 20%. At 35 – the dreaded cliff that everyone talks about, it’s 15%. At 40 you’ve got a 5-10% chance. These percentages do differ depending on the source – these are from the American Society of Reproductive Medicine – but the trend is fairly universal – after age 35 the egg quality and quantity decline speeds up.

But we aren’t really taught about this and many women don’t know until they start to try. Martha certainly didn’t. “No one told me,” she explains. “I thought that you were fertile until you hit menopause – I didn’t realise there was a decline. At 38 I was coasting along thinking ‘I’ll meet someone, I’ve got time.’”

So what happens when you hit 40 and you want to have a baby? Well I suppose the first thing to say is it’s not impossible. Harder, sure, but not impossible. It’s also critical to say, everyone is different. One person might hit their 40s with low AMH (anti-Müllerian hormone) which indicates how many eggs a woman has remaining, others might still have high egg reserves. Genes play a role here and you can’t do a single thing about those.

But whether you’re trying naturally or going through IVF, there are lifestyle factors that you can bring into play to help, supplements to focus on and if you’re going down the IVF route there are things to expect.

I should add, I’m very much focusing on female fertility after 40 here. I’ll leave the lads for another time…