Woman, know your baby deadline

Career or kids? This is a choice many women in their 30s are faced with, but some wait too long to start a family and are left with expensive fertility treatments as their only option to conceive.

All women are born with a biological 'clock', which doctors can now use to determine when a woman will become too old to conceive naturally, hopefully sidestepping the need for fertility treatments.

Ultrasound and questionnaire
The so-called 'baby deadline' can be assessed based on a questionnaire, an interview with a doctor, a blood test and a guided tour of the uterus using ultrasound.

The procedure has proved popular in the Greater Copenhagen region, according to Chief Physician Anders Nybo Andersen. He explains that phones are ringing off the hook at the fertility counselling clinic in Rigshospitalet to make appointments.

Different from treatment
The research project was established in an effort to supplement regular treatments with something different.

"We're trying to do something new, something different from treating symptoms over and over again. The idea is to avoid sending patients with fertility issues through an expensive and complicated treatment regime and nip the problem in the bud," said Andersen.