Ladies, your clock really is ticking: 88% of eggs lost by age 30

In the Let’s Start Encouraging Young Folks to Marry and Procreate Sooner department, we have this from The London Telegraph:

The new research by the Univeristy of St Andrews and Edinburgh University is the first to colate the actual decline of the “ovarian reserve” – the potential number of eggs women are born with – from conception to the menopause. It shows that on average women are born with 300,000 potential egg cells but this pool declines at a much faster rate than first thought. By the age of 30 there is only 12 per cent left on average and by the age of 40 just three per cent.

Dr Hamish Wallace, the co-author, said: “Our model shows that for 95 per cent of women, by the age of 30 years, only 12% of their maximum ovarian reserve is present, and by the age of 40 years only three per cent remains.”

Best to set aside the “it’s better to have kids after college and career” myth right away, don’t you think?

HT: Ladies, your clock really is ticking: 88% of eggs lost by age 30