While the Paris study shows that the father's age affects pregnancy, the woman's age remains the major problem, writes Theresa Judge
OBSTETRICIANS WORKING in fertility clinics in the Republic have said the Paris study showing the father's age affects pregnancy and miscarriage rates needs to be put in context and that the mother's age is a much more important factor.
"The woman's age remains the major problem. If the sperm quality isn't great, we have treatments that can overcome that but if the woman is too old and her eggs are not great, we can't overcome that, unless you get into egg donation and that's a different matter," said Dr John Waterston, a consultant obstetrician and clinical director of the Cork Fertility Centre.
"If a woman has got too old and her ovaries are functioning poorly, the chances of her getting pregnant are tiny. But even if a man's sperm quality is awful, you can still get a woman pregnant. We can even surgically remove sperm from the testes if there is no sperm in the semen," he added.
Dr Waterston, who also attended the Barcelona conference, said one of the most striking facts to emerge from all the studies presented was that people across Europe were leaving it later and later to have children and some people were attending clinics like his too late.
"When a woman is over 38 her fertility decreases significantly with each year and some women make it to us too late. We see women that we could have got pregnant at 35 but we can't when they're 41 - they have missed that opportunity."
In contrast there was "a slight fading of male fertility" but it was "not insuperable". Dr Waterston said he was not sure fertility specialists were heeded when they advised people to start trying to have children younger. "You can advise women to have babies younger, but will anybody actually listen to you?"
Dr Tony Walsh of the Sims Clinic in Dublin agreed that the man's age was a minor consideration compared to the age of the woman. While there was "more evidence emerging that genetic degeneration in the male leads to faulty embryo production", in his daily experience the age of the men coming to his clinic was not a significant factor in the outcomes for couples.
"The effect is tiny compared to the age of the female. It is really only an issue when you get on to really advanced years, when men get close to 60 and there are not many men who want to have children at that age anyway," Dr Walsh said.
Reacting to reports that a 70-year-old grandmother in India gave birth to twins last week, Dr Waterston said such births may be possible with the use of donor eggs but it was "crazy" from an ethical point of view. He said fertility clinics in Ireland and Britain generally did not treat women aged over 45.
"My major concerns would be sociological - is it fair on the children in terms of how long their parents will live for and how well the parents will be able to look after them, and a lot of people would say that it isn't and would not do it," he said.
The Indian woman, Omkari Panwar from Muzaffarnagar, reportedly became the world's oldest woman to give birth when she had her twins, a boy and a girl. She has two adult daughters and five grandchildren but she and her husband wanted a male heir. The father, who is aged 77, mortgaged his land and took out a large loan to pay for the IVF treatment. The twins were born by Caesarean section.