Uni students think it's easy to have kids - study

It's not as easy as you might think to get pregnant. Photo / Thinkstock

Most university students want to be a parent one day, but they're over-estimating how easy it will be to have babies later in life.

An Auckland University study released on Thursday shows students over-estimate how easy it is to fall pregnant naturally and through IVF.

The study follows international research which shows university students over-estimate their fertility despite being the most likely group to postpone parenthood.

The students grossly overestimated the chance of spontaneously falling pregnant during unprotected sex, but were closer to the medical data than Israeli students questioned in a similar study.

Kiwi students thought women aged 46-50 had a 19 per cent chance of becoming pregnant naturally, when medical data shows they've only got a 0-5 per cent chance.

The students also over-estimated the success of IVF, even more so than the Israeli students.

Health science students didn't necessarily have better fertility awareness and nurses were the most over-optimistic about how easy it would be to conceive, the study found.

Students who got the closest to the medical data were - unsurprisingly - those who'd studied a reproductive biology class.

Study author Nathanael Lucas, who's a fifth-year medical student, said the tendency of students to over-estimate how easy it would be to get pregnant was a concern.

"University students have the challenge of balancing a career with starting a family, and as a result, planned pregnancies are often delayed until later in life.

"It is imperative that that these students, and the general public, are educated about an ageing woman's fertility."

Almost 700 Auckland University students, with an average age of 22.3 years, from a range of disciplines and ethnic backgrounds were questioned for the study.

Storks in their eyes
• 5.2 per cent already parents
• 87 per cent want to be parents in the future
• 10 per cent don't want to be parents
• 28.6 considered the ideal age to be a parent

Source: Auckland University.