Career breaks to avoid ‘infertility timebomb’

YOUNG women should be allowed career breaks to have children to help avert a looming fertility crisis, an expert said yesterday.

Professor Bill Ledger said the increasing age at which women were having their first babies was contributing to an “infertility timebomb.”

Threats to both female and male fertility could mean that in 10 years’ time as many as one in three couples would struggle to have children without IVF treatment, he said. The current figure is about one in seven.

Prof Ledger, from the University of Sheffield, said family-friendly career-break policies were needed to ensure that young women could have children when they were most fertile.

“People say it is condescending to say this, but it is not condescending, it is biology,” he said.

“Women are simply not as fertile after 35. It’s easier and more straightforward to do whatever you can to encourage women to have children naturally, rather than waiting to the point at which IVF may be needed.”

Other factors that were impacting on fertility were the growing prevalence of sexually-transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, and increased levels of obesity.

Both the quantity and quality of male sperm also appeared to be in decline.

Prof Ledger said: “The amount of infertility in Europe is going to increase, and I think it will probably double.”