A 74-year-old Indian woman may have set a world record by giving birth to twins, saying she and her husband always wanted children but never thought it would happen. Erramatti Mangayamma, who conceived through IVF, delivered twin girls at the Ahalya Nursing Home in Guntur, in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
“I am very happy. God has answered our prayers,” Mrs. Mangayamma told reporters after the delivery. Her husband, Raja Rao, and other family members marked the occasion by handing sweets to an assembled crowd outside the clinic after word spread around the town.
A team of four doctors performed the cesarean operation. Dr. Sanakkayala Umashankar, who led the medical team, said the mother and babies were doing well.
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The news was met with bemusement and criticism from medical professionals and politicians, questioning why IVF was administered to such an elderly woman and asking what will become of the children in the future.
When asked about the criticism over the ethics of giving IVF to a woman of her age, he said: “That’s an emotional question. I can’t answer that.”
Mrs. Mangayamma married Yerramatti Raja Rao in 1962, and the couple had not managed to conceive after 57 years of marriage.
The oldest mother until now on record was another Indian woman, Daljinder Kaur from Amritsar, in Punjab, who, in 2017, gave birth to a baby at the age of 72.
Pregnancy over the age of 50 has become more common due to advances in medical technology in recent years but the ethics debate rages on. Doctors say that risks posed to women getting pregnant also increases proportionally with age, especially in their forties.
