Your AMH level depends almost entirely on your age. A 30-year-old with a reading of 2.5 ng/mL is right at the median, while that same number in a 25-year-old would fall below average. AMH, or anti-Müllerian hormone, reflects the size of your remaining egg supply, and it declines steadily from your early twenties onward. Understanding where your number falls relative to others your age is far more useful than chasing a single “ideal” value.
Normal AMH by Age
A large study of nearly 23,000 women established median AMH values at each age. The middle 50% range (25th to 75th percentile) gives you the window most women your age fall into:
- Age 20: Median 4.2 ng/mL (typical range 2.5 to 6.7)
- Age 25: Median 3.3 ng/mL (typical range 1.9 to 5.7)
- Age 30: Median 2.5 ng/mL (typical range 1.2 to 4.3)
- Age 35: Median 1.4 ng/mL (typical range 0.5 to 2.9)
- Age 40: Median 0.5 ng/mL (typical range 0.2 to 1.3)
- Age 45: Median 0.1 ng/mL (typical range 0.05 to 0.3)
Notice the wide spread at every age. A 35-year-old at the 25th percentile has an AMH of 0.5 ng/mL, while one at the 75th percentile has 2.9 ng/mL. Both are within the normal range for that age. A single number without age context tells you very little.
What a Low AMH Means
Fertility clinics generally consider an AMH below 1.0 ng/mL to be low, though there is no universal cutoff. Research on predicting poor response to IVF stimulation drugs has found that values below about 0.28 ng/mL are the most reliable indicator that the ovaries will produce very few eggs during a treatment cycle. Between roughly 0.28 and 1.4 ng/mL, response can still vary widely depending on other factors like age and follicle count on ultrasound.
Low AMH does not mean you cannot get pregnant. In younger women (under 38) with AMH below 1.0 ng/mL who pursued IVF, the cumulative live birth rate was 39.3% per patient, compared to 50% in younger women with normal AMH. That gap is real but not as dramatic as many people fear. In women over 38 with low AMH, the cumulative live birth rate dropped to 6.3%, compared to 20.8% for those with normal AMH. Age itself remains the stronger predictor of egg quality, while AMH reflects egg quantity.
Younger women with low AMH who did achieve live births through IVF typically needed more retrieval cycles (an average of 3.5 versus 2.1 for those who didn’t succeed), suggesting that persistence with multiple cycles can partly compensate for a smaller egg supply.
What a High AMH Means
An AMH above 3.8 to 5.0 ng/mL can be a marker for polycystic ovary syndrome, particularly when combined with irregular periods or an elevated follicle count on ultrasound. PCOS causes an excess of small follicles in the ovaries, and since each follicle produces AMH, the total level runs high. A high reading on its own doesn’t diagnose PCOS, but it often prompts further evaluation. In younger women, high AMH without other symptoms is usually just a sign of a robust egg reserve.
AMH and Menopause Timing
Because AMH tracks the declining egg pool, it can offer a rough estimate of how far away menopause might be. Women aged 45 to 48 with AMH below 0.20 ng/mL reached menopause in a median of about 6 years. The same AMH level in women aged 35 to 39, however, corresponded to a median of roughly 10 years until menopause. So even a very low reading doesn’t lock you into an immediate timeline. Age still shapes how quickly the remaining reserve runs out.
Things That Can Skew Your Results
AMH is often described as a stable hormone you can test any day of your cycle, and that’s mostly true, but not perfectly. A meta-analysis found that AMH in the first half of the cycle (follicular phase) runs about 11.5% higher than in the second half (luteal phase). That’s a small difference for most clinical decisions, but if your result is borderline, the timing of your blood draw could nudge it across a threshold.
Hormonal birth control has a much larger effect. Women on combined oral contraceptives show AMH levels roughly 24% lower than women not using any contraception. If you’ve had your AMH tested while on the pill, your true baseline is likely higher than the number on your lab report. Most clinics recommend testing after being off hormonal contraception for at least a few months for the most accurate reading, though specific guidance varies.
Vitamin D status may also play a role, though the relationship is complicated. In women with normal ovulation, vitamin D supplementation has been shown to modestly increase AMH levels. In women with PCOS, supplementation actually lowered AMH. The clinical significance of this isn’t fully settled, but if you’re severely vitamin D deficient, it’s worth noting that your AMH could read slightly lower than it otherwise would.
Lab Tests Are Not All Equal
One easily overlooked issue is that different lab machines can produce meaningfully different AMH values from the same blood sample. The three major automated platforms used worldwide have been shown to disagree by as much as 25% below to 45% above each other for the same specimen. In one comparison, the discrepancy was large enough to reclassify 29% of women into a different treatment category.
This matters if you’re tracking AMH over time or comparing results from different clinics. Ideally, repeat tests should be run on the same assay platform. If your results come in a unit called pmol/L rather than ng/mL, you can convert by dividing by roughly 7.14 (so 10 pmol/L is about 1.4 ng/mL).
AMH in Context
AMH is one piece of a larger fertility picture. It tells you about the size of your egg reserve but says nothing about egg quality, fallopian tube health, uterine lining, or sperm factors. A woman with a low AMH and excellent egg quality can have better outcomes than a woman with a high AMH and poor quality eggs. Fertility specialists typically combine AMH with an antral follicle count on ultrasound and sometimes a day-3 FSH blood test to build a more complete picture of ovarian reserve before recommending a treatment path.