Infertility in Women and the age factor

Infertility and impact of Age

Generally, age and fertility are inversely related, and the aging of the reproductive system plays a key role in infertility.

It has been found that the more rapid decline of fertility potential at any moment occurs at 35 years of age, a fact confirmed by American National Bureau of Health Statistics, studies conducted between 1965 and 1988. Each study used a threshold of 12 months for the definition of infertility, and all showed that at the age of 35 years more than a third of women would not be able to get pregnant within a year. The 35 years of a woman therefore serve as a horizon beyond which reproductive function is irreversibly impaired.

In the 10 to 15 years before menopause, there is a gradual acceleration of follicular loss that correlates with increased levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (follicle stimulating hormone, FSH). Together, these changes reflect the reduced quality and capability of follicles that are older, more sensitive follicles already responded earlier. About the same time that these changes occur, an altercation important in the menstrual cycle also occurs. If, on the one hand, the menstrual cycle may remain regular in the years before menopause, a reduction in the duration of the cycle is due to a shorter follicular phase.

Impact of age on egg quality

The decline in fertility also appears to be a direct consequence of age-related decline in the number of healthy eggs in the ovaries of a woman. A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have - about 400,000. Each month, during their reproductive years, usually only one egg matures. The quantity of eggs starts to decline in childhood and continues into adulthood. Ovulation contributes to the decline, but most eggs are slowly absorbed. Around the fifth or sixth decades of life, most women will have exhausted the number of eggs that they were born with.

Ovarian failure occur when the follicles and eggs from a woman are exhausted and when it ceases production of the hormones estrogen and progesterone.

Other factors related to age

Other factors can also affect reproductive functioning in older women. These factors include:

Frequency of intercourse, which may decline with advancing age and duration of a couple's relationship, irregular ovulation, which occurs as the hormone levels of women change with age, and luteal phase deficiencies, which occur when the amount of progesterone produced is too small to be able to maintain a uterine lining enough for a fertilized egg to implant.

Overall, the age (in association with the female reproductive system) is linked to various physiological hazards:

Miscarriage: whose risk increases in women over 40 years of age.
Exposure to diseases that can affect the reproductive system: including endometriosis and sexually transmitted diseases, such as pelvic inflammatory disease.
Ectopic pregnancy: women between the ages of 15 and 19 years as a woman over 40 years has the highest incidence of death related to pregnancy.