Taking a toyboy doesn’t just boost a woman’s confidence – it may improve her chances of having a baby too. According to doctors, once a woman hits 40, she should seek out a younger man if she wants to get pregnant.
如果已经快40岁的女性还想要怀孕生子的话，那么必须找比自己年轻得多的男性。这似乎给那些喜欢老牛吃嫩草的女星，有了一个很好的借口。不但可以提高自己的自信心，还可以当高龄产妇，岂不是一举两得。
A study of women aged 40-plus found if her partner was aged 43½ and a half or above, her odds of giving birth plummeted.
研究表明，一个40多岁的女性和一个超出43岁的男性在一起，那么女性怀孕的机率就会降低。
It means the growing breed of ‘cougars’ – middle-aged women who date considerably younger men – might have the right idea. Canadian researchers believe the problem is in the man’s sperm, which drops in quality with age. A young woman’s egg is able to repair any defects. But older eggs struggle to make the repairs.Michael Dahan, of McGill University in Montreal, said one solution is for older women to choose toyboys, whose sperm will be in better condition. He said: ‘Ideally, as young as you can get. It actually gives a biological argument for the cougar phenomenon.’
这意味着中年妇女和年轻男性约会是一个非常正确的观点，加拿大的研究人员认为问题其实是出在男性的精子上。随着男性年龄的增长，精子的质量也会下降。年轻女性的卵子可以自行修复，但是年纪大的女性的卵子不会自行修复。蒙特利尔的McGill大学的迈克Michael Dahan,认为其中的一个解决办法就是让中年妇女与年轻男性约会，因为年轻男性精子的质量比较好。他说: “人们觉得男性越年轻越好，但是其实这样在生物学上会产生争议。
Film director Sam Taylor-Wood, 47, last year had her second child with husband Aaron, 23 years her junior. Other older celebrities who have chosen toyboys include Halle Berry, 48, who had a baby with Gabriel Aubry, nine years her junior. The study, presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual conference in Honolulu, is the first to provide evidence that men, like women, have a biological clock.
47岁的电影导演Sam Taylor-Wood去年与比她小23岁的年轻丈夫生下第二个孩子。还有一些名人选择与比自己年轻很多的男性在一起，48岁的Halle Berry与比她小9岁的Gabriel Aubry也育有一个孩子。 在美国生殖学医学年会提出的一项研究证明，女性和男性一样都有一个生物钟，这个生物钟会对其产生影响。
Dr Dahan and colleague Noof Al-Asmari studied 631 women aged 40 to 46 using IVF. Their partners ranged in age from 25 to 73. When the women were split into two groups – those who had babies and those who didn’t – the average age of the men who did not become fathers was just 43 and a half. This applied no matter how old the woman was.Dr Dahan said: ‘Younger women’s eggs can fix any defects of genetic material of the sperm. But once a woman hits 40, that’s no longer true.
博士和他的同事用试管婴儿的方法研究了631名40岁到46岁的妇女。而这些妇女的另一半的年纪是25岁到73岁。这些妇女按是否有孩子被分成2组，那些没有孩子的男性的平均年龄是43岁，整个实验不考虑女性的年龄。博士认为，年轻女性的卵子可以自行修复，但是一旦女性到了40岁，这个自行修复功能就不行了。
Dagan Wells, an Oxford University fertility doctor, said there may be a ‘tipping point’ at which an older egg is faced with such poor quality sperm it cannot make it good again.
博士说道，当质量差的卵子碰到质量差的精子，这样的情况下想有好的结果是不可能的。