So when you stop taking it, you may see symptoms that indicate shortened cycles or painful periods,” says Dr Danielle Lane, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, fertility specialist and medical director at Lane Fertility Institute in California.
“Fertility decreases every year but there isn’t a fertility cliff that women fall off at age 35,” says Eve Feinberg, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Northwestern University, Illinois.
“However, in women over the age of 40 success rates can be low (less than 10% per cycle).” So the biggest predictor of success in most IVF cases is the age of the egg.
Dr Sami Almusawa, medical director and fertility consultant at the Plan Your Baby telehealth clinic says: “Sperm quality – including motility (movement), morphology (shape) and DNA integrity – deteriorates over time.
“It was not designed to address age-related fertility, endometriosis and other causes such as fibroids and polyps.” Although she has seen IVF work for people in their mid-40s, “it required multiple rounds and these women had genetically high egg counts to begin with.
