Viagra side effects: Could the little blue pill be behind Hollywood's older dads club?

In June this year, news broke of Academy Award winning actor Al Pacino becoming a dad again at 83 with 29-year-old girlfriend Noor Alfallah. Alfallah previously dated Mick Jagger when she was 23 and he was 74. And speaking of the Rolling Stone, Jagger also falls into the elderly parent category, welcoming his eighth child into the world in 2016 when he was 73 and his partner, American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, was 29.

Robert De Niro is another celebrated actor deciding to continue parenthood well into his dotage, this year having a baby with his 45-year-old girlfriend Tiffany Chen, at the age of 73. This was his seventh child - his first with Chen.

Now, I don’t know the ins and outs (no pun intended) of the lives of these rich old men, but there has to be a fair chance these babies didn’t enter the world without a little outside help. While the NHS reports potential side effects of headaches, nausea, hot flushes, indigestion, stuffy nose and feeling dizzy - perhaps hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet during retirement should be added to the list.

Despite being referred to in medical terms as a “geriatric mother” when pregnant with my second child at the ripe old age of 36, I bear no ill will towards these fathers having children much later in life. They are quite obviously financially stable and I’m sure their offspring will enjoy a life most of us can only dream of - it’s up to the individual to decide how to plan their own families.

However, I have to admit, the thought of spending my twilight years up to my neck in dirty nappies and sleepless nights is certainly not one that appeals to me - but, to each his own.

The benefits of the little blue tablet are obvious - largely affecting men over 40, erectile dysfunction can cause mental health issues and damage relationships, and with suicide rates so high in men of a similar age, anything that could potentially improve on that statistic must surely be a good thing. 

And as we look ahead to another quarter of a century with Viagra, it will be interesting to see how, as well as changing the bedroom habits of couples advancing in years, might we see it reshaping the families of the future too?