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.
Am I too old? While certain risks may rise with age, men continue to produce sperm throughout their lives and can father healthy children into old age.
Male fertility generally starts to reduce around age 40 to 45 years when sperm quality decreases. Increasing male age reduces the overall chances of pregnancy and increases time to pregnancy (the number of menstrual cycles it takes to become pregnant) and the risk of miscarriage and fetal death.
A recent study in the USA found that there are additional risks for the baby, demonstrating that fathers older than 45 had a 14 per cent greater chance of their babies being born prematurely and at low birth weight (each of which can cause long-term complications).
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. As an added bonus, their children tend to live longer as well.
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.
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.
According to Guinness World Records, the oldest father who had the documentation to prove it was Australian Les Colley, who in 1991 fathered a son with his third wife when he was 92. Here are some other notable men who had their mojos working well into their golden years.
Pregnancy after age 45 years is infrequent and the mother and baby should be considered as a high risk. There is a greater incidence of spontaneous abortion, gestational trophoblastic disease and chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus.
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.
Although men never stop producing sperm throughout their lives, sperm production does begin decreasing after age 35. Motility, volume and genetic quality of sperm of older men are less likely to achieve a successful pregnancy even in younger women.
Extended exposure to benzenes, toluene, xylene, herbicides, pesticides, organic solvents, painting materials and lead might contribute to low sperm counts. Heavy metal exposure. Exposure to lead or other heavy metals also can cause infertility. Radiation or X-rays.
Some men develop depression, loss of sex drive, erectile dysfunction, and other physical and emotional symptoms when they reach their late 40s to early 50s. Other symptoms common in men this age are: mood swings and irritability.
A trained expert checks your sperm count, their shape, movement, and other characteristics. In general, if you have a higher number of normal-shaped sperm, it means you have higher fertility. But there are plenty of exceptions to this. A lot of guys with low sperm counts or abnormal semen are still fertile.
As the father grows older, the number of mutations in the father's genome increases, leading to an increase in the incidence of congenital malformations in offspring [11, 65]. Older paternal age may be harmful to the offspring's health in terms of genetic mutations, telomere length, and epigenetics [66].
Pregnancy in Your 40s
If you get pregnant after 35 years old, experts call this an “advanced maternal age” pregnancy. But it's still possible to get pregnant and deliver a healthy baby in your 40s. Childbirth at older ages has become more common too. Since the 1990s, birth rates in people aged 40-44 have gone up.
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. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely.
“It's exceptionally rare for patients to get pregnant naturally at 50 or over 45. They make history,” said Dr. David Keefe, an obstetrician-gynecologist and fertility researcher at New York University. In part that's because around age 50, many women are entering menopause, after which egg harvesting isn't possible.
Pregnancy Risks in Advanced Maternal Age
Your chance of miscarriage is increased, along with an increased risk of developing gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, and having a child that is preterm. You are also at risk for conceiving a child who has a chromosomal abnormality, such as Down's syndrome.
Though there are two unconfirmed reports of older fathers, Les Colley holds the official record after his partner gave birth to a son in 1993. The Australian pensioner had his ninth child, Oswald, to his third wife two months before he turned 93.
Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara is the oldest verified mother; she was aged 66 years 358 days when she gave birth to twins; she was 130 days older than Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth in 2005 to a baby girl. In both cases, the children were conceived through IVF with donor eggs.
It is claimed that Barbara Stratzmann (c. 1448 – 1503) of Bönnigheim, Germany, gave birth to 53 children (38 sons and 15 daughters) in a total of 29 births by 1498. She had one set of septuplets, one set of sextuplets, four sets of triplets and five sets of twins.
Age and sperm
Men younger than 40 have a better chance of fathering a child than those older than 40. The quality of the sperm men produce seems to decline as they get older. Most men make millions of new sperm every day, but men older than 40 have fewer healthy sperm than younger men.
While delivering at age 35 and older is officially considered “advanced maternal age,” Dr. Kalish notes that in reality, there's no “magic number” for being at-risk for complications. “A healthy 38-year-old could have an easier pregnancy than a 20-year-old who has multiple medical issues,” Dr.
The scientists also note that at the age of 35, the proportion of sperm carrying an X chromosome also seems to increase, meaning older dads are more likely to have daughters. In human reproduction, the Y chromosome is responsible for making a male child.