Wednesday,Oct 21 2009, 01:20:11 PMget pregnant in 20

Time is on your side if you're trying to get pregnant and wonder how to get pregnant in your 20s — and biology too. Your body is primed for pregnancy, and it likely still will be if you decide to add to your brood down the line.

That said, pregnancy at any age comes with distinct advantages and disadvantages. We checked in with fertility specialists, financial consultants, relationship gurus, and 20-something moms to provide a realistic picture of what it's like to have a child in your 20s.

Pros

From a strictly biological perspective, the 20s is the best decade for conceiving and carrying a baby: Experts say the average woman's fertility peaks when she's 24.

Like every woman, you were born with all the eggs you will ever have: about 1 million at the time of birth. By the time you reached puberty, your eggs numbered about 300,000, but only about 300 are released from the ovaries during your reproductive years.

As you get older, your ovaries age along with the rest of your body, and your eggs become less viable. For that reason, younger women's eggs are less likely than older women's to have genetic abnormalities that result in Down syndrome and other birth defects. The risk of miscarriage is also far lower: The risk is 10 percent for women age 20 to 24 versus 18 percent for women age 35 to 39, and 34 percent for women 40 to 44.

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