Hollywood stars 'fuelling the rise of older mothers'

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This week, Halle Berry, 41, became the latest actress to give birth for the first time as an older mother.

Professor Brian Lieberman, an IVF expert, said women were taking a risk if they used high-profile actresses such as Berry and Nicole Kidman, now pregnant at 40, as role models for late motherhood.

Rates of miscarriage rise from 15 per cent to more than 25 per cent once a mother is over 40. The risks rise further from 42 and there is a greater chance of Down's syndrome.

Professor Lieberman, an adviser to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority-said many wanting to conceive over 40 would have to use donated eggs. "Women don't know how these celebrities conceived - it could have been through egg donation."

He added there was a shortage of egg donors in Britain, where it is illegal to buy and sell eggs or sperm, unlike in the US.

Professor Lieberman, fertility chief at Manchester's St Mary's Hospital, said: "Ordinary women see someone like Nicole Kidman having a child and they think they are all right. But it can't be said often enough that women's fertility falls with age and there's no real way of preserving that fertility."

Other high-profile women to have had babies later in life include Madonna, who was 42 when she gave birth to son Rocco in 2000 after becoming a mother for the first time at 37.

Government figures show the conception rate for British women in their forties almost doubled between 1991 and 2006, with older women in London leading the trend. The rise has been attributed to social and economic factors, as more women put their careers first.