Routine pregnancies for women past 50, however, aren't in the cards, doctors say, so don't count on it. The different goals are necessary because there is a physical limitation to what fertility treatments can provide, he adds. As a woman ages the quantity and quality of her eggs decline and then there is menopause. Women stop producing eggs at menopause. The quality of sperm also degrades in men, but most men produce sperm in such quantities that their fertility is not seriously affected as they age.
Significant research is ongoing to overcome the fertility troubles of aging bodies.
The research focuses on getting a woman past menopause to be medically treated to prepare her uterus for a pregnancy. The pregnancy would be the result of DNA from her cells that is mated in the laboratory with DNA from her partner and fused into an egg donated from a younger woman. The younger cytoplasm around the inserted DNA cues changes that block spontaneous abortion, the response by the body to flawed eggs. In the laboratory, the mother's and father's DNA can be evaluated and chosen to reduce age-related mutations. The scientific work that will bring such a scenario to a clinic near you is already in progress, though it is many years from being offered to the public.