Female age and fertility

Fertility, both female and male, is closely linked to age and is affected by the normal aging processes. 

L'manas we age, it does not stop producing spermatozoa: despite this, they gradually decrease and deteriorate in quality.

In woman age is essential for reproductive capacity and the quality of oocytes decreases with increasing age. The woman has a predetermined number of follicles, which, however, with the passage of time, gradually become exhausted without the possibility of regeneration. According to data from the Ministry of Health, a woman's fertility is maximum between 20 and 30 years. The entrance into the phase of subfertility or infertility it usually occurs around the age of 40, but in some cases it can be even earlier.

Increased maternal age is partly responsible for an increased risk of infertility and a lower chance of carrying a pregnancy to term. Certainly the numerous advances in the medical field can facilitate and resolve some factors of infertility, but they cannot modify the decrease in the quantity and quality of oocytes biologically related to female age.

Read also: Endometriosis: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Female fertility decline: what does it depend on?

According to the opinion of the American "Committee of Gynecology of the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists" and the "Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine", age-related decline in female fertility depends on irreversible reduction in the quantity and quality of oocytes present in the ovaries.

In fact, the more the years pass, the more the number of oocytes in the ovaries decreases due to a natural process called atresia. Practically,

• the maximum number of oocytes (6-7- million) occurs in the female fetus around the 20th week of gestation,
• after birth the baby has a quantity of oocytes of 1-2 million,
• at puberty the girl has 300/500 thousand oocytes,
• there are 25 thousand at the age of 37,
• and alone 1.000 oocytes at the age of 51.

In addition, there are significant changes in fertility at age 32 and at age 37 for the woman. Fertility drops significantly a 32 years and another decline after i 37 years. In particular, the biological mechanisms underlying this are still poorly understood, but concern various factors encoded by the genes present on the X chromosome and on the other chromosomes.

Read also: At what stage is a woman's fertility? The ovarian reserve says so

TAG:

• infertility
• pregnancy age