To get everyone to agree and break an unbearable suspense, let's give the floor to Dr Joëlle Belaish-Allart, gynecologist-obstetrician and head of the medically assisted procreation service at the Quatre Villes de Sèvres hospital. "The ideal age to have a child is between 25 and 35," she replies bluntly. Before adding:“A 25-year-old woman has a 25% chance of being pregnant each month. This rate drops from the age of 30, it plummets to 12% at 35 and is only 6% at 40. “However, it’s simple! “Yes, but women don’t want to hear it, they are a bit in denial, regrets the specialist. Our society, starting with the media, refuses to have a negative, limiting discourse. Not to mention that there are strong sociological and economic trends that have contributed to pushing back the age of childbearing. “Women study for a long time, enter working life late, wait to have a stable apartment and affective and professional life before embarking on a maternity project”, recalls researcher Gilles Pison, from the National Institute of demographic studies (INED)**. Which specifies that the average age of maternity, in France, is a little over 30 years in 2013 against 26.5 years in 1977! And then, in defense of the unconscious-thirties-not-in-a-hurry-to-put-a-baby-on-the-road, medicine – and in particular medically assisted procreation specialists – nevertheless made us believe that it could do anything. . It is an understatement to say that she had the noisy and media triumph. Couples had difficulty making babies? No problem, the doctors could take care of it. In the 80s and 90s, you only have to look at the headlines of the newspapers endlessly celebrating the prowess of the French, English, American and Italian teams. Even grandmothers could become mothers again, that is to say! Between ovarian stimulation, sperm donation, techniques helping weak sperm to fertilize the egg, egg freezing... it was finally possible to ask for the impossible. And then the lengthening of the lifespan, the habit of programming the different stages of our existence sometimes give us the impression, to us too, of being masters of the world. However, today, Professor Olivennes reminds us, “medically assisted procreation cannot do everything. And from the age of 36, his results drop significantly. »
** Author of France 2009:the average age of childbearing reaches 30, in issue 465 of Population and Society, March 2010. Downloadable from the INED website.
