What's the best age to have a baby?

Those in the baby business in the Western Bay have questioned Australian research which suggests the perfect age for a woman to start a family is 29.
Australian Health Department figures showed 59 per cent of women felt they were best placed to procreate at the end of their 20s because it was when they were most secure - financially and in their relationships.
Plunket clinical advisor for the Midlands Region Marianne Grant did not agree with the suggestion of a perfect age for procreation.
"I don't think there is a perfect age, everybody's in a different place in their life cycle. I'd say it's across the gamut. For some people 18 is great, for some people it's 40," she said.
Mrs Grant said for some women career might take a leading role in their life while for others the right person remained elusive.
"It might take you a little while to find the right partner, while others find them straight away," she said.
Tauranga midwife Shirley Marriott also disagreed with the suggestion of a perfect age.
"From my experience it's not necessarily age that's important. I've seen women in their early 40s have beautiful, easy, normal labours and I've also seen that with teenagers and people in their 20 and 30s."
Mrs Marriott agreed with the idea that the best time to have a baby was when a woman was secure financially and in a relationship.
"I totally agree with it but I don't think you could put a stamp of age on it," she said.
Michelle Elkayem, who lives in Christchurch, was 30 when she had her first child and said she was glad she waited.
Her daughter, Kyla, is now 2 and Mrs Elkayem is six months pregnant with a boy.
Originally from Florida, Mrs Elkayem met her husband there when she was 21.
She said the couple wanted to wait until they had travelled and "been young for a while" before they settled down.
"We wanted to stay young longer and we didn't rush into anything ... we had a lot of life experiences first."
However, waiting until she was 30 did give the couple some problems.
"The only problem was that if we'd done it a few years earlier, we wouldn't have been set in our ways. I think because we did have so much time as a couple, it meant that we struggled a bit to adapt to having a child."
Mums on Top director Marilynn McLachlan posted a comment on the support group's Facebook page asking what mothers thought the perfect age was to start a family.
"It seems to be life stage, rather than age stage. We've got responses from young mums to mums in their 30s and they're all saying that they're happy with the age they chose and they wouldn't take it back," she said.
Mrs McLachlan was 22 when she had her first child and although she did not go on an OE, she said she was glad she chose that age because it was much easier on her body. "When you're that young your body bounces back ... but I really don't think there is a perfect age to start having kids."
Kiwi Families' director Rochelle Gribble said there would always be complications with having children, no matter what age women started a family.
"If you have children later, you're more established in your career but it's difficult to then maintain that. But if you're younger when you start having children, it's harder to get back into the workforce."