Dairy-Free Fertility?

It's no secret that the average age of motherhood has been rising for decades, since the baby boom mothers of the 1950s. With women waiting longer to get married in the first place, and then postponing motherhood to get a good start on their careers, the incidence of women worrying about their impending loss of fertility has created a boom of its own - books preying on their hopes and fears.

And that brings up to Sarah Dobyns, author of The Fertility Diet: What to Eat to Maximise Your Chances of Having a Baby and to Enhance Libido at Any Age. That shouldn't be confused with The Fertility Diet, a wholly different book by by Jorge Chavarro, Walter C. Willett, and Patrick J. Skerrett. Or, for that matter, with The Infertility Diet: Get Pregnant and Prevent Miscarriage, by Fern Reiss. Or about fifty other books with variations on these titles.

Dobyns' advice must be followed by both halves of the couple, and is mostly a long list of what not to eat, with oddly specific timing on when not to eat it, according to an article by Fiona Macrae on the Daily Mail Online.

The most comprehensive guide of its kind, it advises cutting out smoking, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, caffeine and soya in the first month. Peas and rhubarb are also banned, following studies linking them to infertility.

By month two, couples should have given up all meat and cut out sugar and dairy products.

Come the third month, consumption of eggs and fruit juices should be reduced.

What do doctors say about this? Pretty much exactly what you would expect.

Professor Bill Ledger, a fertility expert from Sheffield University, said lifestyle did not have a major effect on fertility and he was unaware of any evidence that vegans go through menopause at a different time to other women.

He added: 'We tend to create a lot of guilt in people these days.

'The worry is that some gullible young woman will read this book and start living that life and miss out on a lot of fun and normality.'

The authors of that other Fertility Diet book, who are doctors, by the way, offer the following as a way to increase your chances of fertility:

Having a glass of whole milk or other full-fat dairy product every day (a small bowl of ice cream every now and then counts, too!)

But it worked for Dobyns, right? She's doing this from experience, isn't she?

Hah.

The 43-year-old former barrister ... is engaged and plans to start trying for a family soon

If you want children, I wish you luck. But don't think you're going to get pregnant by giving up all dairy. Or by having your husband give up dairy with you. You'll have better luck with the stork and the cabbage patch.