No, Naomi Campbell, it’s not model behaviour for normal middle-aged women to have a baby at 53

The news of the supermodel’s second child is wonderful, but with IVF costing tens of thousands of pounds, it’s not a decision most ordinary mums-to-be can make in mid life, as I know all too well...

Naomi Campbell has just had her second baby aged 53 (2023 Invision)

Last month, Naomi Campbell had her second child at 53. “It’s never too late to become a mother," she said. To which I’d reply: Wait, really?

The supermodel made the surprise announcement on Instagram to her 15.3m followers with a photo of herself and her two-year-old daughter holding hands with the newborn baby boy wrapped up in what is thought to be a £275 Dolce & Gabbana ivory baby grow set.

It all looks so perfect. When Campbell had her first baby at 50 in 2021, she told Vogue magazine that she was encouraging all her older friends to have children. “I’m telling them all, do it!” she said. “Don’t hesitate!” as if she’s recommending a spa treatment rather than giving sound advice about having a baby.

While I understand the joy of becoming a mum later in life, leaving it until you are 40, as I did, is like playing Russian roulette. Campbell’s baby news, as wonderful as it is, is being presented as a positive message for older woman that you can have kids at any age. It’s just not true.

Celebrity pregnancies over 50 give women false hope about what is actually possible. In the UK, the average age for a woman to reach menopause is 51 and fertility falls off a cliff at 40.

It’s very hard having kids late in life with your own eggs – I should know. I’d spent all my savings on IVF when I hit 41 and I was very lucky I had some equity in my flat that I’d bought in the dump end of north Kensington before prices shot up, to pay for the soaring IVF bills.

An old friend also stepped in to help me financially on the last leg of my gruelling IVF journey – not everybody has cash to spare.

It costs about £10,000 per round, and many people will have about three rounds of IVF. I had far more.

IVF success rates drop rapidly once a woman hits 43 – it’s reportedly about 5 per cent. There is no data for women in their 50s because it’s so unlikely to happen with egg quality going down the drain and an egg reserve that is by then fizzling out fast.

Many women don’t make it to motherhood – and this whole dream sold of egg freezing is not realistic. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) reported that while 2,500 patients froze their eggs in 2019, that number rose to 4,000 by 2021.

But to stand a chance, you must freeze them under the age of 35. The younger the egg the better. Freezing eggs costs between £4,000 and £7,000 in the UK.

But how many of us women reach 35 and haven’t frozen our eggs? I was always holding on for the right partner to turn up or for him to commit. It never crossed my mind I’d still not have fixed my love life by then.

While I am really happy for Campbell – I can’t but help worry that ordinary women will buy into the fantasy that motherhood is always within reach.

Janet Jackson had her son Eissa Al Mana in 2017 at the age of 50 – so why can’t we? How these celebrities beat the odds and get one over Mother Nature is often never disclosed – as in the case of Campbell. It’s really none of our business anyway.

She did make it clear that her first child is her own – she’s not adopted – so it’s possible she froze her eggs when she was younger, just like Rita Ora told me she had done when I interviewed her last year.

It’s always a bit hazy how older mums do it? It’s often reported that celebrities who have kids over 45 did it via a surrogate. But what exactly does that mean? Nobody really mentions that it can also involve using the surrogate’s eggs, not your own.

The truth is if you want kids – don’t leave it as late as I did and understand the reality of what celebrities might be doing. It is positive, as Campbell says, that you can start a family at any age with scientific advances, but not everybody has her sort of budget.

If you’re 50, it’s highly unlikely you will conceive naturally – or with your own eggs via IVF, unless you froze them over 15 years ago. Of course, there are miracles, but it’s like winning the lottery.

I look at my kids and take a sigh of relief – I always wanted to be a mum. But I would never shout from the rooftops, like Campbell is, that age doesn’t matter.

I remember only too well what it was like to sob in the bathroom over another failed pregnancy test. Like so many other women, I was struggling with infertility and also wishing I hadn’t left it so late.