The phenomenon of women giving birth later in life is a good one for society, Prof Robert Winston told an audience in Dublin last night.
A well-known broadcaster, and professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London, he said he would be wary of telling women at what age they should have children. While it was proper that women were delaying childbirth to further their careers, they should be conscious of possible fertility problems if they left it too late.
"I think it is desirable in many ways because it makes women equal to men in society, but it causes some reproductive problems which, if we are wise, we will try and find social and technological solutions for," he said.
Prof Winston gave the inaugural lecture at the Trinity College Dublin (TCD) series of public lectures on ageing at the Edmund Burke Theatre.
He said, though science could not make older women more fertile, it is likely there will be "better ways of preserving reproductive ability" in the future.
He said there was a "very strong case" for helping women into their late 40s to give birth because women are fitter than they were in the past, though he said it was "extraordinarily rare" for women in their 50s to have IVF or other fertility treatments.
He also said that there is no cut-off point beyond which women should not have children and women should trust their own instincts in that regard.
