British singer Lisa Stansfield underwent three unsuccessful rounds of in-vitro fertilisation (Ivf) in the mid-2000s in a bid to become a mother, but insists she is glad she failed to fall pregnant.

The All Around The World hitmaker, 46, has opened up about her struggle to conceive, admitting the death of her mother Marion in 2006 made her want to have a child.

Britain's Daily Mail quotes the star as saying, "I didn't want children for a long, long time. It was something to do with having freedom and time of my own.

"Then I woke up one morning and thought, 'Oh my God. I really, really want to have a baby'. And it was too late. It was around the time my mum died. I think my mum dying made the evil biological clock start ticking.

"It is something to do with life and death. They are intricately connected. The urge was completely and utterly beyond my control."

Stansfield and her husband Ian Devaney could not conceive naturally, so they turned to Ivf - but the singer, who is now plotting a music comeback, admits she's pleased the treatment didn't work.

She adds, "We tried it on and off for about three or four years, but it didn't work. It was really gutting (disappointing). Concentrating on Ivf messed up work for a while. Everything else, including my career, went on the back burner. I kept thinking 'If only I had tried earlier'.

"I really feel bad for people who have rounds and rounds of Ivf. We did three and then I just said 'I can't do any more'. I thought 'I can't want a child as badly as I think I do because I'm not going through this again'.

"Now I'm back to normal. I'm glad that I never had a baby. After all the Ivf I just realised that I wouldn't have wanted a life with a child. Maybe I had too much time on my hands. But now I can fill up the time with work."