Previous research has pointed to a slight increase in birth defects in babies born to older men. A 2005 study of 70,000 couples by epidemiologist Jorn Olsen at the University of California, Los Angeles, found a fourfold rise in Down’s syndrome among babies born to men aged 50 and older. They were also more likely to have limb deformities.
The chances of having a baby with Down’s syndrome increase rapidly with a woman’s age. About one in 1,000 babies born to mothers under 30 have it, a figure that rises to one in 400 by the age of 35 and one in 105 by the age of 40.
“There is growing evidence from a number of studies to show that men are not totally immune from reproductive ageing,” said Allan Pacey, an expert in male fertility at Sheffield University. “Previous studies of couples trying to conceive naturally or undergoing IVF [in vitro fertilization] have shown that men over the age of about 40 are less fertile than younger men.”
RSS