Getting pregnant after 35 is far easier than doctors say, a controversial new book claims. So are the doctors wrong about older women and fertility?

On her 40th birthday Sarah Briggs made a vow. Single, and with no sign of Mr Right on the horizon, she decided to make peace with her life and accept that she would never be blessed with children.

Instead of raising a family, she was going to make the most of her freedom - to travel, pursue a demanding career and enjoy her sporting hobbies.

Just over ten years on, things could not be more different. 

Sarah, who turns 52 in September, has just started a part-time admin job, she’s married and, most incredibly of all, is a mother of three. Her youngest child, Edward, was conceived when she was 48; all her pregnancies were natural, without any fertility treatment..

‘If, at my 40th birthday party, you’d told me that I would have three children by the time I turned 50, I would have laughed and said it was ridiculous,’ says Sarah.

A series of relationships in her 20s and 30s with men who didn’t want to commit meant that Sarah hadn’t tried for children earlier. Like many women, she assumed that by her 40s she’d left it too late.

Until now, it’s been commonly accepted that a woman’s fertility plummets after 35. Two years ago a major study from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists warned that women aged 35 were six times more likely to have problems conceiving than those ten years younger. By the age of 40, a woman was more likely to have a miscarriage than give birth.

The report stressed that not only were expectant mothers in their late 30s and 40s far more likely to suffer complications such as pre-eclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or stillbirth, their babies were also more likely to be premature, smaller or have genetic disorders such as Down’s syndrome.

But now a new book by psychologist Jean Twenge has controversially argued that warnings about older women’s fertility problems are hugely overblown and based on hopelessly out of-date statistics. 

It claims that women over 30 are being panicked into believing they have fallen over a ‘fertility cliff’, when the decline is nowhere near as steep as generally assumed.

A U.S. study, released in June, appears to back up the argument, suggesting that 80 per cent of 38 and 39-year-olds get pregnant naturally within six months of trying.

Another study released earlier this year, which tracked Danish women having sex during their fertile periods, reported similar figures: 78 per cent of 35 to 40-year-olds got pregnant within a year. It followed 2004 research that suggested of those having sex twice a week, 82 per cent of 35 to 39-year-olds conceived within a year - just 4 per cent fewer than those aged 27 to 34. 

Like many single women in her early 30s, Jean Twenge found herself assailed by frequent moments of baby panic. Now, she is 41 and the mother of three.

While researching her book The Impatient Woman’s Guide To Getting Pregnant, the statistics that Twenge saw most often in medical tomes was that only two out of three 35-year-old women would be pregnant after a year of unprotected sex.

But going back to the source of the information, Twenge found - incredibly - that it was all based on research from church birth records in rural France between 1670 and 1830.

Clearly, there are huge differences between women from that time and now, namely hugely improved medical care and better diets.

Sarah Briggs, a former senior manager for Watford Council and British Waterways, who is married to David, a 38-year-old accountant, and lives near Carlisle, Cumbria, says she’s had no problem at all getting pregnant in her 40s. She met David a few months after her 40th birthday, when they were both out training for triathlons. 

Their eldest, Alex, aged nine, was conceived less than six weeks after the couple started trying for a baby when Sarah was 41. Isabella, now seven-and-a-half, was also conceived within six weeks when Sarah was 43.

Then, aged 48, she decided to come off the Pill because she wanted to be able to recognise the signs of the menopause. When she missed a period, she assumed it was the start of ‘the change’. It turned out she was pregnant with Edward.

‘I’ve never taken any chances with contraception since,’ she laughs.

‘I feel that I was much better prepared for motherhood in my 40s than my 30s. I had achieved my career goals, and am a more patient, settled and self-assured person.

‘My priority now is to stay healthy for my children. After all, when Edward is 20, I’ll be nearly 70. But I’ve read somewhere that women who have children later live longer [some scientists believe the rate at which a woman’s reproductive system ages is directly linked to the speed at which the rest of her body does]. My grandmother is still alive at 101, so I am taking hope from that.’

Sarah’s story is mirrored by that of former TV correspondent-turned-writer Claudia Spahr. She started her family at 40 with son Santiago, five, had her second child - Elian, now 22 months - at 42 and is now expecting her third in September when she’ll be 45. 

Claudia, originally from Yorkshire but now based in Spain with her husband Javier, 30, says each time she conceived naturally and extremely quickly, with textbook pregnancies.

She feels so strongly that older women face an unwarranted barrage of negativity if they want to try for families that she wrote Right Time Baby, a guide to later motherhood. 

She interviewed 60 mothers aged 35 or over, including many who were over 40. For most, it took less than six months to get pregnant

Claudia believes health and diet are more important than age: ‘There are a lot of women over 40 who are very healthy, and they are not the ones who are going to have a dip in their fertility figures; rather, it’s all through the population, men included. 

‘A lot of that has been proven to be due to stress and our Western diet of processed, manufactured food.’

The charity Foresight Preconception, which aims to enhance fertility by improving the natural health of the parents, did a study on 1,000 couples over seven years.

‘They do hair analysis and check your nutrients, then give nutritional and lifestyle advice,’ says Claudia. 

‘They had an 89 per cent success rate of getting women pregnant and a really low miscarriage rate. A lot of the couples were over 35 and had been trying to get pregnant for ten years.’

Ultimately, she thinks it’s unhelpful for doctors to put pressure on women to have their children younger.

‘It’s very hard to base your life decisions on that,’ she says. ‘Do you finish with your boyfriend if he doesn’t want children with you? And what if you don’t have a boyfriend at all? It just leaves many women in a panic.’

She also feels strongly that there’s a link between stress and conception, so the pressure to start families ends up being counter-productive.

‘We are learning more all the time about the neural connections between the brain and health, and how stress has a contrary affect on the way your ovaries function,’ she says.

Some suspect the panic around fertility for older women is fostered by the highly lucrative infertility industry. As Claudia Spahr points out: ‘It means people are more likely to panic and go for help, rather than keep trying. 

‘If you’re over 35 and you’ve been trying for only three months, some doctors suggest putting you straight onto fertility drugs. I’m convinced a lot of the couples who go for IVF, if they’d had the proper advice beforehand, probably wouldn’t have had to spend all that money.’

But most mainstream experts insist that, however healthy you are, your chances of conceiving will inevitably get lower the older you get and the likelihood of complications higher. 

This is really good news especially for those still believing God for the fruit of the womb.

I strongly believe that one of the major problem, especially after doing everything right, diet wise and exercise is the waiting process. Stress is always the main problem. How to make your body relax at that time of the month. If we can deal with STRESS, the chances of getting pregnant is good. 

My advice is, at that time of the month, make love as much a possible and just forget about everything. Just enjoy that time of the month, see it as fun time. It could help you relax or any method that relaxes you is okay. Its important you are stress-free if possible.