A 65 year old woman has given birth. Is that a good thing?
I’m usually thrilled by the miracle of new life, but one of the latest miracles of medicine is leaving me rather sickened. Another has me feeling touched – but confused.
A 65-year-old German woman has given birth to quadruplets.
Annegret Raunigk had three boys and a girl by Caesarean section at a Berlin hospital. While the babies were born extremely prematurely, at 26 weeks, the babies have a “good chance of surviving”.
Congratulations on new life and being the world’s oldest woman to have quads, Annegret. And best of luck with bringing up children who may have developmental problems for life while you cope with being a single mother to 13 children and 7 grandchildren.
I’m being harsh, I know. Perhaps criticism should also be directed at the fertility clinic in the Ukraine. No doubt doctors were thrilled at their success in reversing menopause with hormones and implanting the young donor eggs fertilised by stranger’s sperm.
But did they really think about the repercussions of their cleverness?
The clinic is not the only one in the world with questionable ethics. Spanish woman Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara was 66 when she had IVF treatment in America and then had twins in 2006. She was the world’s oldest mother until she died before her boys turned three.
India’s IVF clinics pride themselves on post-menopausal babies. Rajo Devi Lohan had a child at 69 after three rounds of IVF that nearly killed her. The world’s oldest mother is believed to be Indian woman Omkari Singh, who gave birth to twins at the age of 70 after selling her family’s buffalos, mortgaging their land, spending their life savings and taking out a loan. The girl died but the boy is her pride and joy.