57-Year-Old Mother of Twins Breaks Record
photo : flickr.com/Beautifulfreaks
A 57-year-old Indian woman is believed to be the oldest woman to give birth in Australia. Last week sometime, the woman from India gave birth to twins at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Australia.Previously the oldest recorded mother was 56-years-old.
A local newspaper in Australia reports the mother underwent IVF treatment in India by using donor eggs, and traveled to give birth via cesarean section to the babies. In Australia IVF in women over 50-years-old is rare because of the low success rate in women over the age of 44.
This birth has sparked debate and discussion in Australia though.
Andrew Pesce, president of the Australian Medical Association, told the Sunday Times: “Certainly this case raises very significant issues. If you were a good doctor counselling a patient, you would make sure the patient understood the implications of having a child at that age … We live in a society which values individual choice.”
All around the world, the trend of having children at sometimes extreme ages has led to some heartbreaking stories, like Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara of Spain who gave birth in 2006 to twin boys at the age of 66. Last year she passed away leaving her family to raise the young children. Sadly those boys never truly will remember their mother on their own.
How do you feel about parents going through fertility treatments later in life, like the women above?
I don’t think IVF is a good idea for women of any age. I don’t believe in forcing the body to do something it doesn’t want to do. I believe that our reproductive systems slow down around age 35 for a good biological reason. A woman who has children in her 50s must have some expectation that her family will end up raising them – if she becomes sick, dies or simply can’t keep up with toddlers.
That all said, I am thankful that I don’t know the struggles of dealing with infertility. I do understand on some level what would make women choose it.
Lindsey, you are very lucky not to have dealt with infertility. It is a heartbreaking, devastating condition, and science has figured out a way to cure it. No different from having surgery and undergoing chemo to try to cure cancer. THat being said, there needs to be some responsibility taken when undergoing ART treatments. It is somewhat selfish to bring children into the world at that age. But, the reality is that no matter what age you are, there is always a risk that you could be killed by an accident or by a fluke medical condition. That is why we set up guardians and god parents.
As someone who had her first child at 17 and her 5th and last at 42 who am I to say what age is right? I have obviously been blessed with the gift of fertility and I would never take it upon myself to judge or criticize someone less fortunate than I…No one knows what the future holds and I personally wouldn’t change my dreams based on the fact that I could die tomorrow because YOU could die tomorrow as well!
I am saddened for those children whose mother died last year leaving them without her but how much sadder if the world didn’t have them to carry her memory on.
I totally disagree with women in their 50s having children. I never knew two of my grandparent, so it’s tremendously sad to think about kids who won’t get to have their mothers for a long time. Also, knowing how much energy kids take to raise, it just seems so hard and exhausting for most 50-year olds (or even late-40s).
Just because science has made certain things possible doesn’t mean science is the right answer. While I hurt with and for women who can’t get pregnant, there are other, less invasive options for having a child! Adopting a child or fostering a child are great blessings both to the children and to society in general. A person with a heart big enough to suffer through the “maybe it’ll work” IVF process can surely provide the same love for an adopted or fostered child. Through these methods, a person can fulfill their yearning for a child, bless the child by providing a loving household, and reduce the burden on society to find a way to raise the child.
look up the ages of the women in europe that have had ivf to give birth one was in her 70′s
as a mum of six , first at 17, last at 40, and a nanna of 4…. i dont believe that ivf should be availble over a certain age… your body has a clock, if it stops ticking i think it does so for a reason. why is it that the doctors who perform these procedures are not being asked why?.. it’s not as if we need anymore answers to the science .. we all know it works, to a point, so why push that point onto a child who never asked to be bought into the world with a elderly parent? my body has been forced into early menopause due to illness, i would gladly have had another child… but that dosnt mean im gunna run out and try evrything to make it happen, time to kick back and watch my other kids enjoy life.