Britain's top maternity doctor has called for school children to be taught that the best age for a woman to have a baby is between 20 to 35.
Dr Tony Falconer, the new president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says women must be 'better at resolving the conflict' between their careers and family life.
He warned against the growing trend for women to have children later as they concentrate first on their careers, insisting it harmed fertility and would lead to conception problems.
'There's no doubt that between 30 and 35 is the time to have your children. We are building up a difficulty for ourselves as a society by people's expectations that they will wait until they are older. That's a very complex issue and it is a problem.'
Many women increasingly leave having children until their late 30s or even 40s despite the higher health risks, encouraged by older celebrity mothers such as Madonna and Nicole Kidman.
