With celebrity such as Des O'Connor, who had his fifth child at 73, Rod Stewart, who had his seventh at 60, and BBC Radio 4s John Humphries and actor Del Boy who both bcame fathers again in their late fifties, being an older father has become quite fashionable.

The study, the largest of its kind, compared data on the health of 2.6million babies born in the U.S. over a five-year period with the age of their fathers. All the babies were considered were born to women of a similar age.

Analysis showed that babies of teenage fathers suffered many more problems in the first hours and months of life than those born to men in their 20s - the decade thought to produce the healthiest children of all. Boys and girls with teenage fathers were 13 per cent more likely to be underweight at birth and 15 per cent more likely to have been born prematurely.

Two worrying statistics which came out  were that they were also 22 per cent more likely to die within the first month of birth and 41 per cent more likely to have died before their first birthday. It was unclear why a young age should have such an effect although teenagers are thought to produce lower quality sperm. Lifestyle may also play a large role, with young fathers likely to have less money to lavish on their pregnant partner, and, perhaps, being more likely to drink and smoke.

On the other hand, babies of fathers in their 40s, 50s and 60s suffered no more problems than those born to men in their 20s, the journal Human Reproduction reports.

The researchers, from the Ottawa Health Research Institute in Canada, said the combination of the scale of the study and the limited age range of the mothers meant the findings were unlikely to be down to chance.

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