The number of older women trying to become pregnant has increased over the last five years. Women lose most of their eggs earlier in life, like in their early 30’s or late 20’s.

And there is a rising numbers of women delaying motherhood – and are then turning to IVF as their fertility declines. For modern mums, new lives begin at 40. Increasingly, an awful lot of 40-plus women don’t see themselves as old. Many are fit and healthy and look extremely youthful.

Yet fertility is going to start declining somewhere in their mid-30s. As they approach 40, the majority are going to see a significant decline.

Although there is no cut-off age for IVF, but fertility experts encourage women not to wait until they turn 40.
After all, it is well known that success rates for IVF decrease substantially for older women, a fact that typically results in more treatment cycles, for less likely outcomes.

The average age of women receiving treatment using their own eggs or embryos, is 36 years, and the average age for women using donated eggs or embryos is 40.8 years. But only one in 100 women over 44 will deliver a live baby.
Women over 38 years of age often have very few eggs, respond poorly to conventional ovarian stimulation. Also, such patients usually require huge doses of expensive drugs that can add up to the already high cost of conventional IVF.