Should Pill packets warn women not to leave it too late?

As a top fertility doctor makes a radical suggestion... NO

ONlY a male scientist could dream up such an absurd proposition as putting warnings on condoms and Pill packaging to remind women ‘not to leave it too late’ to have children.

Men and women generally use condoms for the precise reason that they don’t want a baby — not just then, but perhaps never with him or her. It’s hardly the moment to lecture women over their responsibility to their future fertility.

And what would fertility expert Professor Adam Balen, who came up with this idea, suggest the cigarettestyle warnings depict — a woman in her late 30s sobbing?

When I was a younger woman, my generation was done a great disservice by a medical establishment that didn’t warn us about the viability of our eggs, and that there was a real risk that if we did not have a child before we were 40, we might never become mothers.

The superwoman generation of the 1980s and 1990s thought we could have it all, when we wanted it. We had no clue that our eggs had already been stamped with a sell-by date.

having tried to get pregnant ‘naturally’ throughout my 30s, I finally went to the lister Clinic for help. The expert said that, even with IVF, my chance of getting pregnant at 40 was just slightly higher than winning the EuroMillions.

I had no idea I had left it too late. It was heart-wrenching. While I respect any woman who chooses to go down the donor egg route, it was not for me and so, tragically, nor was motherhood.

Thankfully, it’s so different now:

‘Why not let women enjoy sex instead of ’ scaring them?

girls and women are educated about their bodies. Most girls I know start taking the Pill in their mid-to-late teens, whether their mum knows it or not, as that’s when they become sexually active. By then, they’ve been educated at home and school about the cruel trick of nature that means men can have kids in their 80s, while women cannot.

So, however well-meaning, it’s rather patronising of the Prof to suggest that you put that duty of care onto an advertising agency dreaming up a slogan.

And do women really need to be reminded daily, and each time they make love with someone they adore (or make a mistake with someone they don’t), that they’d better get cracking before it’s too late? Surely the bedroom is the one place they can expect to be free from lecturing, and enjoy their sexuality without having the bejesus scared out of them.