If you're in your mid-30s and you want to be a father at some point then the answer should, unfortunately, be yes. Research released this week has found that, from the age of 35, you have a higher risk of your partner failing to get pregnant or miscarrying once she does, regardless of her age, because the quality of your sperm decreases. By 45, the odds of miscarriage have doubled. Meanwhile the typical age of married fathers has gone from 29.1 in 1971 to 34.1 in 2003.

The implications of a woman's age on her fertility have been pored over for years, but until now there has been comparatively little attention paid to the question of whether daddy is in the first flush of youth himself. Now, men, you too can feel scared to glance at the health pages, just in case you read something else that causes a bilious surge of self-reproach because of your failure to get (someone else) knocked up. You, too, can feel the guilt associated with the desire to focus on anything - a job, a life, the smallest mote of fussiness over your choice of co-parent - other than the fact that your baby-making window is soon to close. And welcome, chaps, to the fun game of Finding a Life Partner (Who Also Wants a Baby) Before the "Time's Up" Sign Starts Flashing On Your DNA.

Coping with it

How will men cope? There will be some anxiety, perhaps, although many may remain secretly convinced that, of course, their sperm is age-impervious, and will reassure themselves with anecdotal reports of nonagenarians still impregnating their (vastly younger) partners.

And unfortunately, it's unlikely that the pressure will be off women either. How much do you want to bet that before the end of the week this is going to be somehow our fault for failing to hook quality father material before his use-by date?

The Guardian