MELBOURNE, June 27 (Xinhua) -- Prospective fathers have little knowledge of how age affects fertility despite wanting children one day, an Australian study published on Tuesday revealed.
Karin Hammarberg, a researcher at Monash University, reviewed 46 international studies and found that "most" young men said they wanted "at least two children."
But she found that many men prioritized "a full-time job and a good economy" over starting a family despite lacking an understanding of how age of either gender affected fertility.
"Men want to have children as much as women do, and they expect to have children, fatherhood is really important to them," Hammarberg, who also works the Victorian Assisted Reproduction Treatment Authority, told the Australian media on Tuesday.
"But they have limited knowledge and understanding of fertility, male and female.
"They think women's fertility starts to decline at about 40, but (in fact) that is pretty late already."
The men studied said they would rely on in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment to have children after the age of 37.
Typically a woman's fertility peaks in her late 20s or early 30s with a slow but steady decline starting from age 32 before rapidly declining from 35.
At age 30, a woman has a 20-percent chance of conceiving every month compared to a 5-percent chance at age 40.
"There's a lot of reliance on technology, when in reality there's nothing IVF can do with age-related infertility due to the biological decline of eggs and sperm, the age factor is not amenable to treatment," Hammarberg said.
"They expect they will one day become parents, but then it's a matter of coming to the decision and making it happen.
"Sometimes men want to have a pretty extensive adolescence and shy away from responsibility.
She said men who wanted to have children but missed their suffered from more mental health issues than those who had children.
"If you want to have children and it doesn't happen, it is equally sad for men and women and affects their mental wellbeing," Hammarberg said.
