A-list parents need to tell the truth, before it’s too late

One of the con tricks played on the public by celebrities is the suggestion that motherhood can be postponed almost indefinitely. If you’re in the know, you can spot the telltale signs of deceit. Twins, for example. One in six IVF births is twins, as opposed to one in 80 among the general population. Beyoncé apparently conceived her twins, a girl, Rumi, and boy, Sir Carter (Sir for short, I’m afraid), naturally, aged 35. But Celine Dion and Mariah Carey have had multiple births in their late thirties or early forties, suggesting they might have had help.

So three cheers for a study of glossy magazines that criticises middle-aged celebrities for fuelling “highly damaging” misconceptions about the chance of getting pregnant later in life. The New York University School of Medicine found that, of 240 celebrities mentioned in relation to pregnancy, only two were reported as having used assisted reproductive therapy. Which was strange, because the majority of featured women were 35 or older.

The Mature Madonna Myth encourages women to put off starting a family until their forties in the belief that they can have IVF with their own eggs. Often, they are left childless or resort to expensive, often futile, fertility treatment. In the UK, 50,000 couples a year go through IVF and 70per cent will be unsuccessful. The success rate – failure is a better word – for women aged 40-42 is just 13.6 per cent.

And rationing of IVF in the cashstrapped NHS means that only one in 10 local health authorities is meeting national guidelines guaranteeing infertile women under 40 three full rounds of treatment. In East Anglia, where I live, they have, disgracefully, cut IVF entirely. And this when the number of women over the age of 35 having babies has overtaken the number having them under 25.

We hear a lot about the need for contraceptive education. Equally urgent is educating young girls on conception. It would be a big help if older celebrity mothers started being honest about where baby came from.