World's oldest mother gives birth to twins at 70
Grandmother Omkari Panwar has given birth to twins at the age of 70
She was utterly determined to have a son.
The fact that to do so would make 70-year-old Omkari Panwar the world's oldest mother didn't even cross her mind.
Her resolve was matched by her husband Charan Singh Panwar, 77.
To pay for the IVF treatment vital to producing a male heir to the family's smallholdings, the retired farmer sold his buffalos, mortgaged his land, spent his life savings and took out a credit card loan.
And it all paid off when Mrs Panwar gave birth to twins - a boy and girl - by emergency Caesarean section in hospital in Muzaffarnagar, seven hours drive north of the Indian capital New Delhi.
The twins, born a month premature and weighing 2lb each, are healthy, according to doctors.
The Panwars already have two adult daughters, and five grandchildren, but the latest arrivals are what they have been waiting for - not least because a son will benefit from a dowry when he marries and will be able to work their land.
Mrs Panwar said: 'For eight months the pregnancy was hectic and painful. But I have given birth before, so I knew what to expect. Sometimes, you have to face the pain if you want something good.'
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Her husband added: 'At last we have a son and heir. We prayed to God, went to saints and visited religious places to pray for an heir.
'The treatment cost me a fortune but the birth of a son makes it all worthwhile. I can die a happy man and a proud father.'
Wonders of science: The twins born to Omkari Panwar
Mrs Panwar, who has no birth certificate, uses the date of India's independence in 1947 to gauge her age. She remembers being nine when the British left India - meaning she is now 70.
Romanian Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth to a daughter through IVF aged 66 in 2005, was previously the world's oldest mother.
Mrs Panwar was told she had beaten the record as she recuperated on a rusty steel bed in the mudbrick home of one of her daughters.
Proud parents: Omkari Panwar, 70, with her husband Charan, 77
'I didn't know that,' she said. 'But it is of little benefit to me. I have not even seen my own children yet - they were taken to a specialist hospital while I was still unconscious.
'If I am the world's oldest mother it means nothing to me. I just want to see my new babies and care for them while I am still able.'
Gynaecologist Nisha Malik, who delivered the twins in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, said: 'I was shocked when this old lady told me she was pregnant. I have been in medicine for 20 years and I have never heard of such a case.'
Omraki Panwar recovers in hospital after delivering her twin via Caesarean section
Me Wena Seen Ekak
World's Oldest' Mom Gave Birth at 66, Dead at 69; Leaves Behind Twins
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
MADRID — A Spanish woman who deceived a U.S. fertility clinic about her age and become the oldest woman to give birth has died at 69, leaving behind 2-year-old twins, newspapers reported Wednesday.(Wednesday, July 15, 2009)
Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth in December 2006 after telling a clinic in Los Angeles that she was 55, the facility's maximum age for single women receiving in-vitro fertilization. Guinness World Records said the 66-year-old was the oldest on record to give birth and the case ignited fierce debate over how much responsibility fertility clinics have over their patients.
Bousada told an interviewer at the time that the Pacific Fertility Center did not ask her for identification, and maintained that because her mother had died at 101, she stood a good chance of living long enough to raise her children.
An early-morning call and an e-mail to the Pacific Fertility Clinic were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Bousada's brother told the local newspaper Diario de Cadiz that she had died but he did not disclose the cause. The newspaper said, without citing a source, that Bousada had been diagnosed with a tumor shortly after giving birth.
Ricardo Bousada told the Barcelona-based newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya that he had exclusively sold details of his sister's death to an unidentified television program and that the proceeds would go to looking after his sister's twin boys, Pau and Christian.
Repeated calls by The Associated Press to Ricardo Bousada's residence in the southern province of Cadiz went unanswered. A woman who answered the phone at a number listed for another brother, Jose Luis Bousada, declined to comment. Her death was also reported by the national newspapers El Mundo
There was no word on who would raise the twins. Bousada had once said she would look for a younger man to help her raise them.
Bousada lived with her mother most of her life in Cadiz and worked in a department store before retiring. She decided to have children after her mother died in 2005 and initially kept her plan secret from her family, she told reporters.
She told the British tabloid News of the World that she sold her house to raise $59,000 to pay for the in-vitro fertilization.
"I think everyone should become a mother at the right time for them," Bousada told the paper. "Often circumstances put you between a rock and a hard place, and maybe things shouldn't have been done in the way they were done, but that was the only way to achieve the thing I had always dreamed of, and I did it," she said.
When she finally told her relatives she was two months pregnant, they thought she was joking, she said.
"Yes, I am old of course, but if I live as long as my mom did, imagine, I could even have grandchildren," she told the News of the World.
Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said the organization recommends that assisted conception generally not be provided to women beyond the natural age of menopause at about 50.
"The rationale for all that is that nature didn't design women to have assisted conception beyond the age of the natural menopause...once you get into the mid-50s, I think nature is trying to tell us something," Pacey told The AP.
He added: "I think many people would worry about providing fertility treatment to women in their 60s. I think as a general rule, to embark on pregnancy when you may not see your child go to university is potentially a very difficult situation."
Adriana Iliescu, a Romanian who in 2005 also gave birth at 66, although she was 130 days younger than Bousada, said she was pained to hear of her death and what it meant for her sons.
"It is a great sadness when kids are orphans but civil society will help these children," she told The AP.
She described her little daughter Eliza as "very energetic and spoiled. We dance and sing together."
"I don't feel I am getting old. My pregnancy kept me young," Iliescu said.
She was utterly determined to have a son.
The fact that to do so would make 70-year-old Omkari Panwar the world's oldest mother didn't even cross her mind.
Her resolve was matched by her husband Charan Singh Panwar, 77.
To pay for the IVF treatment vital to producing a male heir to the family's smallholdings, the retired farmer sold his buffalos, mortgaged his land, spent his life savings and took out a credit card loan.
And it all paid off when Mrs Panwar gave birth to twins - a boy and girl - by emergency Caesarean section in hospital in Muzaffarnagar, seven hours drive north of the Indian capital New Delhi.
The twins, born a month premature and weighing 2lb each, are healthy, according to doctors.
The Panwars already have two adult daughters, and five grandchildren, but the latest arrivals are what they have been waiting for - not least because a son will benefit from a dowry when he marries and will be able to work their land.
Mrs Panwar said: 'For eight months the pregnancy was hectic and painful. But I have given birth before, so I knew what to expect. Sometimes, you have to face the pain if you want something good.'
More...
- Pregnant man gives birth - and father and baby are doing well
Her husband added: 'At last we have a son and heir. We prayed to God, went to saints and visited religious places to pray for an heir.
'The treatment cost me a fortune but the birth of a son makes it all worthwhile. I can die a happy man and a proud father.'
Mrs Panwar, who has no birth certificate, uses the date of India's independence in 1947 to gauge her age. She remembers being nine when the British left India - meaning she is now 70.
Romanian Adriana Iliescu, who gave birth to a daughter through IVF aged 66 in 2005, was previously the world's oldest mother.
Mrs Panwar was told she had beaten the record as she recuperated on a rusty steel bed in the mudbrick home of one of her daughters.
'I didn't know that,' she said. 'But it is of little benefit to me. I have not even seen my own children yet - they were taken to a specialist hospital while I was still unconscious.
'If I am the world's oldest mother it means nothing to me. I just want to see my new babies and care for them while I am still able.'
Gynaecologist Nisha Malik, who delivered the twins in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, said: 'I was shocked when this old lady told me she was pregnant. I have been in medicine for 20 years and I have never heard of such a case.'
Omraki Panwar recovers in hospital after delivering her twin via Caesarean section
Me Wena Seen Ekak
World's Oldest' Mom Gave Birth at 66, Dead at 69; Leaves Behind Twins
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
MADRID — A Spanish woman who deceived a U.S. fertility clinic about her age and become the oldest woman to give birth has died at 69, leaving behind 2-year-old twins, newspapers reported Wednesday.(Wednesday, July 15, 2009)
Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth in December 2006 after telling a clinic in Los Angeles that she was 55, the facility's maximum age for single women receiving in-vitro fertilization. Guinness World Records said the 66-year-old was the oldest on record to give birth and the case ignited fierce debate over how much responsibility fertility clinics have over their patients.
Bousada told an interviewer at the time that the Pacific Fertility Center did not ask her for identification, and maintained that because her mother had died at 101, she stood a good chance of living long enough to raise her children.
An early-morning call and an e-mail to the Pacific Fertility Clinic were not immediately returned Wednesday.
Bousada's brother told the local newspaper Diario de Cadiz that she had died but he did not disclose the cause. The newspaper said, without citing a source, that Bousada had been diagnosed with a tumor shortly after giving birth.
Ricardo Bousada told the Barcelona-based newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya that he had exclusively sold details of his sister's death to an unidentified television program and that the proceeds would go to looking after his sister's twin boys, Pau and Christian.
Repeated calls by The Associated Press to Ricardo Bousada's residence in the southern province of Cadiz went unanswered. A woman who answered the phone at a number listed for another brother, Jose Luis Bousada, declined to comment. Her death was also reported by the national newspapers El Mundo
There was no word on who would raise the twins. Bousada had once said she would look for a younger man to help her raise them.
Bousada lived with her mother most of her life in Cadiz and worked in a department store before retiring. She decided to have children after her mother died in 2005 and initially kept her plan secret from her family, she told reporters.
She told the British tabloid News of the World that she sold her house to raise $59,000 to pay for the in-vitro fertilization.
"I think everyone should become a mother at the right time for them," Bousada told the paper. "Often circumstances put you between a rock and a hard place, and maybe things shouldn't have been done in the way they were done, but that was the only way to achieve the thing I had always dreamed of, and I did it," she said.
When she finally told her relatives she was two months pregnant, they thought she was joking, she said.
"Yes, I am old of course, but if I live as long as my mom did, imagine, I could even have grandchildren," she told the News of the World.
Allan Pacey, secretary of the British Fertility Society, said the organization recommends that assisted conception generally not be provided to women beyond the natural age of menopause at about 50.
"The rationale for all that is that nature didn't design women to have assisted conception beyond the age of the natural menopause...once you get into the mid-50s, I think nature is trying to tell us something," Pacey told The AP.
He added: "I think many people would worry about providing fertility treatment to women in their 60s. I think as a general rule, to embark on pregnancy when you may not see your child go to university is potentially a very difficult situation."
Adriana Iliescu, a Romanian who in 2005 also gave birth at 66, although she was 130 days younger than Bousada, said she was pained to hear of her death and what it meant for her sons.
"It is a great sadness when kids are orphans but civil society will help these children," she told The AP.
She described her little daughter Eliza as "very energetic and spoiled. We dance and sing together."
"I don't feel I am getting old. My pregnancy kept me young," Iliescu said.
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