From a biological standpoint, experts recommend a man is best suited to fatherhood from his late 20s to early 30s. It is still possible for men to father a child in their 50s and older. According to Guinness World Records, the oldest man to father a child was 92 years old at the time of the birth.
3. Sean Stewart. Sean Stewart was only 12-years-old when he had a son, Ben Louis, with his 16-year-old neighbor, Emma Webster.
An 11-year-old boy from Auckland, New Zealand, has become the world's youngest father after having a child with the 36-year-old mother of his school friend. The schoolboy and the baby are now both believed to be in care. The woman is facing criminal charges.
While certain risks may rise with age, men continue to produce sperm throughout their lives and can father healthy children into old age.
Australian dads are among the oldest in the world, and we're not getting any younger. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics' data on registered births in 2020, the median age of fathers is 33.6 years, rising from 28.5 years in 1975, when data was first collated.
The median age of all mothers for births registered in 2016 was 31.2 years, while the median age of fathers was 33.3 years. For all median age data, see the dataset Confinements, by nuptiality, by state from the Downloads tab. Footnote(s): (a) Not available for 1974 and earlier years.
Although most men are able to have children well into their 50s and beyond, it becomes gradually more difficult after the age of 40 . There are many reasons for this, including: Sperm quality tends to decrease with age.
New parents tend to be older in general. The average age of first-time mothers is 26, up from 21 in 1972, and for fathers it's 31, up from 27.
A woman's peak reproductive years are between the late teens and late 20s. By age 30, fertility (the ability to get pregnant) starts to decline. This decline happens faster once you reach your mid-30s.
The man who is thought to have fathered the most children of all time is Moroccan Sultan Ismail Ibn Sharif (1645 to 1727) with a total of more than 1,000, according to Guinness World Records.
Oldest fathers: medical considerations
The website of the world record authority Guinness World Records lists the oldest father ever as Australian Les Colley (1898-1998), who allegedly fathered his ninth child at age 92 with a Fijian woman he met through a dating agency.
As noted by discoversoon.com and some other sources, the youngest father in the world ever was 9 years old. His name is unknown, but the story says that he became a daddy back in 1910. The mother of his child was even younger. She was just 8 years old back then.
Gender does not determine who can become pregnant. People who identify as men can, and do, become pregnant and give birth, if they possess a uterus and ovaries.
Go for it! Don't stress about your age. Focus on the positives, throw yourself in and give it everything you've got. Take care of your health and use your secret weapon of 'maturity' to be the best dad you can.
While fewer than 1 percent of first-time fathers are over 50, there are benefits to being a later-in-life father. Dr Paul Turek, a men's health and fertility urologist, says that men who have children at an older age tend to live longer.
Older paternal age may be harmful to the offspring's health in terms of genetic mutations, telomere length, and epigenetics [66]. Several lines of evidence suggest that epigenetic changes occur in the sperm of older fathers, particularly defects in DNA methylation [67–69].
There's no maximum age that stops a man from being able to have a baby. You can become a father long into your older years, but there are risks.
There's no expiration date on when guys can father a child. Case in point: Rocker Mick Jagger just had his eighth child at the age of 73. Since men don't hit menopause—the time in a woman's life where her fertility ends—they can typically continue to father children into their later years.
While the majority of children are born to fathers between the ages of 20 and 34, becoming a later-in-life dad is a distinct trend. Current research indicates that since 1980, birth rates have increased 40 percent for men ages 35 to 49.
Turns out, men have their own ages to be mindful of. “It's on a hockey stick shaped curve [of risks], just as it is with women, but with men the stick is a lot longer. The risks can start at 40 or maybe even 50 or 60 and then [risks] rapidly rise after 60,” says Dr. Paul Turek, a men's health and fertility urologist.
Main points. A woman's age is the most important factor affecting her fertility and her chance of having a baby. The chance of having a child is much higher for women younger than 35 years and men younger than 40 years than for older women and men.
The average age young people leave home in Australia is 23 for men, and 24 for women. Sara, 27, was a few years beyond the national average when she decided to move out last December.