Fertility – you would be surprised how long it takes to disappear

In the news this morning is a new campaign from the Family Planning Association – Conceivable? – about the rise in unplanned pregnancies in the over 35’s. Looking at the abortion statistics – the most obvious and reliable illustration of unplanned pregnancy – you’d expect the rate of abortion to be very low in the over 35 age group. However, in 2008, women aged 40–44 years old had the same rate of abortion as women under the age of 16. And almost 20,000 women aged 35–39 had an abortion.

The message is that if you’re over 35, although your fertility is declining, it hasn’t disappeared completely. Fertility is an individual thing. It changes with lifestyle, varies hugely from woman to woman and essentially from couple to couple.

So, if you are over 35, ovulating, having regular periods, unprotected sex and you know you or your partner is not clinically infertile, every month there’s a chance you’ll get pregnant

If you don’t want to get pregnant the bottom line is to keep using contraception right up until the menopause. You need to use it for two years after the menopause if you’re under 50 and for one year after the menopause if you're over 50.

There are 15 methods of contraception and at Kings Medical Practice we are able to supply them all! All the doctors can prescribe oral contraception and give advice and three of our doctors (Dr Liz Barber, Dr Pat Mooney and Dr Becky Harding) have special training and expertise in fitting IUDs, IUSs, and long acting injectables.

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