Kirsie Allsopp has defended her controversial claim that women should put off higher education and "have a baby by the time you’re 27" at a Stylist magazine event this evening.

Speaking at the second of Stylist's Life Lessons lecture series in London's Ham Yard hotel tonight, the 43-year-old presenter and mum-of-two told the audience that she was initially taken back by the storm of criticism sparked by her remarks in a Telegraph interview three months ago.

But, she told the crowd tonight, the reaction then made her more determined to put her point across that we, as women "are taking risks with our fertility".

Kirstie, a self-professed feminist, admitted that raising awareness of the issue was "a new thing for me".

"There aren’t enough people talking about this," she said. "It’s about not being judgemental. I think it is something all young women and young men should talk about.

"I think women are being lied to. The facts cannot be got away from. It gets more and more difficult to have children over the age of 35. You have a 10 percent chance of conceiving a child over 40.

"I want to say to women: be honest with each other, with your partners, daughters and sons - know that you can have careers at any age, you can go to university at any age. You can do a thousand brilliant things at any age.

"But just for now, we haven't opened the fertility window any wider. It is easier and simpler and less of a heartache to just have children when our bodies allow us to."

She added that it was important that if women in their thirties with boyfriends or husbands wanted children, they should highlight to them that, 'I don’t have as much time as you do'.

"Plenty of women don't want children and that's fine - but if you do, you need to know the facts," she said. "Society has shifted immensely; as intelligent women we frown on women having children young."

"Women are being lied to": Kirstie Allsopp defends controversial remarks on fertility at Stylist Life Lessons event