Turning back the biological clock comes at a price

The astute woman of child-bearing age develops a facility to tune out of alarmist headlines about the biological clock. But every now and again an expert comes along and offers the kind of soundbite that cuts through. The latest came courtesy of Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Clinic, who last month said: “It may not be true that women should be having babies at the time of GCSEs, but they shouldn’t leave it much later than graduation. Age 25 is exactly the time when today’s young women have left university, are trying to get off on a good career, trying to find someone who wants to have babies with them, and trying to get on the housing ladder.”

Twenty-five? In a supportive society, women keen to conceive in their mid-twenties might find it realistic to do so. But not in the current climate, where the financial crisis, spiralling property prices, unstable employment, austerity and low pay have combined to trap many members of Generation Y in perpetual financial adolescence.

Last year I interviewed people...