In the Let’s Start Encouraging Young Folks to Marry and Procreate Sooner department, we have this from The London Telegraph:
The new research by the Univeristy of St Andrews and Edinburgh University is the first to colate the actual decline of the “ovarian reserve” – the potential number of eggs women are born with – from conception to the menopause. It shows that on average women are born with 300,000 potential egg cells but this pool declines at a much faster rate than first thought. By the age of 30 there is only 12 per cent left on average and by the age of 40 just three per cent.
Dr Hamish Wallace, the co-author, said: “Our model shows that for 95 per cent of women, by the age of 30 years, only 12% of their maximum ovarian reserve is present, and by the age of 40 years only three per cent remains.”
Best to set aside the “it’s better to have kids after college and career” myth right away, don’t you think?
I also think a little Gospel is in order. My wife of one month is 33 years old, and she would cry if she read this.
I'm sorry if you find this news disturbing, but I'm relaying the information as it appeared in a reputable British newspaper. The Law is brutal and unkind, even when it is natural. The Gospel doesn't change medical fact, rather it helps us to accept medical fact as it is. If you desire children, I'll join you in prayer.
I agree with the above poster. This info is not surprising but very saddening. I say this as a 25-year-old unmarried woman who is already scared she might be infertile by the time she gets married, if ever.
(And, as a way-too-much-information aside, I was literally on the brink of tears yesterday, thinking "what if I have premature menopause?" just because my period was about a week late. —Though, fortunately I was "reassured" today.)
http://pofsupport.org/information/factsheet/fact_...
God comfort you and may He answer your prayers.
12% of 300,000 is still 36,000…3% is still 9,000…I'm not sure what the number of eggs has to do with the fertility rate. Women do not entire menopause because they run out of eggs.
I thought that fertility declines in older women for a variety of reasons, but partly because of egg quality, not quantity.
I would suggest that you read the entire article, which explains more about why \”egg count\” is a factor in fertility. Simply click in the link I've provided. If you have further questions, please consult a physician, which I am not.
should be "do not enter menopause"
I did read the whole thing. It says egg count is a problem because then there aren’t as many around that the body could pick a quality one from. I really don’t know if or how eggs are picked, though.
I mentioned this because I thought some readers might get carried away from the % marks. 12% of eggs left does not mean 12% of original fertility left.
Oh, I get it… you noticed my "I'm not sure what the number of eggs has to do with the fertility rate." That is a nicely vauge line of mine. There is some sort of correlation between the two. To what degree there is also causation, and how it works, I really don't know.
Um, thanks for the advice, but from my observations most of the Christian young women in their 20s who are "focusing on their career" do so because it's the only vocation the Lord has opened for them at the moment.
Yes, they have put off marriage until after college but after that marker they are open, waiting, and trying to remain busy and useful. Spreading information like this is only likely to make a situation already viewed as desperate more disheartening. You would do better to focus on why there is a dearth of Christian men with enough character to be entrusted with the headship of a household. I'm not saying they don't exist, but the numbers seem to be stacked against the Christian women.
Let's look at your argument.
First, you present anecdotal evidence (your observations), upon which you make a theological judgment (for some women, career is the the only vocation the Lord has opened). That's a very poor foundation.
Second, your argument is a form of the is/ought fallacy. Just because some people "are" single does not mean that they "should" be single.
Third, and closely connected to the above, your argument fails to take into consideration human choice. As such, it cannot explain why a) some women choose marriage and motherhood over a career; b) other women choose both marriage and motherhood and a career.
Fourth, your argument is not derived from Scripture or Natural Law. God does not create special sexual organs for singleness. He creates us male and female for the purposes of procreation and mutual aid. He pronounces that creation "good."
As far as your accusation that "spreading information like this is only likely to make a situation already viewed as desperate more disheartening," to be logically consistent you would likewise have to protest warning labels on cigarette packs or child car seats.
If you have any other concerns about fertility issues, please consult your doctor.
Sorry, this is a long one, but I want to hit all the points.
1) I will grant you that I have used anecdotal evidence because the surveys that exist have been badly formulated. They take for granted that because women are unmarried at 30, have ended romantic relationships, and remain unmarried that the women preferred to be single. In short, they have bought the feminist line and use that as their starting point. This just isn’t true! Of all of my female friends (and according to Facebook I have over 300 single, Christian, female friends of various denominational stripes), I have a grand total of 1 who is out of college and single by choice. Yes, it’s a selected group but we’re talking about people who recognize a scriptural/natural law argument. You can argue that they are being too choosy in the choice of a man, but not that want to put off child bearing should the right man come along.
My theological point, however, has scriptural validity. Christ and Paul are clear: celibacy is given by God to some. I would contend that it, like many spiritual gifts, can be temporarily given as well (but here the scriptures are unclear). Either way, these women are giving of their time and talents to the church, and to their neighbors through their jobs; they also are not sleeping around. I contend that, having not given these women to be married RIGHT NOW, God presumably knows what he is doing enough to make use of their single state. When these women pursue what you call “a career,” they do so be because it is meaningful work that pays rent. I stand by what I said: it is the only vocation the Lord has opened; we may pray that it is a temporary state.
2) I recognize your distinction but do not think it applies. I am generally of the opinion that God is sovereign and that if the particular woman is single it is God’s will. In Eden, perhaps there would have been no single people, but it isn’t Eden and I believe those who are single, and who pray that that state will be changed, are single NOW, by the will of God. That could, of course, change tomorrow for any one of them.
3) Yes, humans can choose the ways in which they wish to invest their time. I fail to see the distinction you are drawing. We aren’t talking about the women who have kids and dump them in daycare to go back to work, we are talking about women who put off having kids. I am arguing that women who wait into the real danger zone (late 30s) almost never were so dumb that they did it out of choice; the weighed the moral and economic necessities and made their choice. Maybe they did the math wrong, but they didn't count on having a baby at 40.
4) Yes, God created us male and female. He also gave some of us the gift of celibacy. That gift can be, and historically has been, abused but we don’t marry off fourteen-year-olds, and they have mature special sexual organs too. We council them to exercise restraint. I would encourage the single 25 year old females to do the same.
5) Warnings are warnings, when derived from solid data. Unfortunately, the article you cited doesn’t actually prove what it contends. First, I could be misreading it, but they appear to have used 325 women at various ages, to collect one data point from each. This would be all well and good, except their starting reserves varied by a factor of more than 50! What does that do to their error rate? Second, they give no standard deviation. Third, I am at a loss to figure out how they have determined the decline rate for any individual women when the numbers are so widely distributed if this was not a longitudinal study—which it does not seem to have been. Fourth, we do not know if children were included in this study. At conception, they hold that the average women as 300,000 eggs. What does this number look like at age 15? If the number has cut down by half, the 12% left by age 30 starts to look a lot less pitiful. (Maybe someone who had taken much biology would know the answers to these questions, but I am stuck looking only at the figures without background information.)
To use the seat belt analogy, if statistics showed that confining a 10 year old child to an immobilizing car seat would decrease their likelihood of death in a crash by 1%, would you tie your 10 year old down? Crossing the street has a risk; I do it every day. Now, I will freely grant you that a woman putting off children until her early 40s is playing reproductive roulette; putting them off until her late 20s when she hasn’t met the right guy doesn’t seem that dangerous. Yes, the longer a person waits to have a child decreases the likelihood he/she will be able to father/carry said baby. But, really, we already knew that. I think Abraham and Sarah had figured that out.
[...] hours of my January 30 post Ladies, your clock really is ticking: 88% of eggs lost by age 30, I already had two responses, both negative. Seems the information presented in the post, which I [...]