Making pregnancy possible

1. Don’t wait too long. “Many women don’t realise that their peak fertility time is in their mid-20s and already starting to fall by their late 20s,” says Jamie Grifo, programme director of the New York University Fertility Center.

• Infertility rates about double for women between the early 30s and early 40s. The percentage of married, 25-to-29-year-old women who are infertile is nine per cent, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine data.

• By 35 to 39, the percentage has climbed to 22 per cent; and by the early 40s, it has jumped to 29 per cent. Moreover, a healthy 30-year-old who’s trying to get pregnant has a 20 per cent chance per month. By age 40, her odds are only about five per cent a month. And yet, approximately 20 per cent of women wait until after age 35 to begin their families.

• Male fertility isn’t timeless, either. After 50, some men may experience a decline in sperm quality — they produce more misshapen cells and fewer that can swim well —which can make fertilisation trickier.

• “Don’t assume fertility is a guarantee,” Grifo says. “The most important thing you can do is start early.”

2. Practice safe sex. Sexually transmitted diseases can drastically reduce one’s ability to get pregnant — so, abstinence or consistent condom use can simultaneously prevent pregnancy today and preserve fertility for the future.

• Chlamydia and gonorrhoea are two leading causes of infertility; untreated, either can cause pelvic inflammatory disease.

• PID can lead to permanent scarring in the fallopian tubes, uterus, and surrounding tissues, which, in addition to impairing fertility, sometimes produces chronic pelvic pain and potentially fatal ectopic pregnancies, where the foetus develops outside the uterus.

• The statistics are eye-opening. An estimated 2.3 million cases of Chlamydia and more than 700,000 cases of gonorrhoea occur annually nationwide, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.