She’s old enough to be their great-grandmother.
A 74-year-old woman from India has become the oldest mother ever to give birth — and doctors are calling her twin baby girls a “medical miracle.”
The proud first-time parents, mom Erramatti Mangayamma and father Yaramati Sitarama Rajarao, 78, used a standard in vitro fertilization procedure, their doctors told the Times of India.
The full-term babies were delivered by cesarean section on Sept. 5, at a private hospital in Guntur, located on the Eastern coast of India in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
The couple had tried throughout their 57-year marriage to conceive, failing despite their continual consultations with doctors and religious leaders, they said.
“People looked at me with accusing eyes, as if I had committed a sin,” Mangayamma told the paper of her infertility.
“Neighbors would call me ‘godralu’ [a curse word for a childless woman]. However, my husband stood by me like a rock.”
Her husband, a farmer, added, “We are the happiest couple on earth today. We have our own children.”
Manngayamma went through menopause nearly 25 years ago, so an egg was taken from a donor and fertilized with her husband’s sperm, her doctor, Sanakkayala Umasankar, told the Hindustan Times.
He told the Times of India it was a “medical miracle.”
Mangayamma became pregnant after just a single cycle of IVF, and a team of 10 doctors helped with the pregnancy and delivery.
The mom also underwent a psychological examination to be sure she was mentally prepared, her doctors said.
“We conducted all the medical tests and found that she was medically fit for conception through IVF,” Umasankar said,
But the births concerned local medical ethicists, who questioned the propriety of helping a woman in her 70s have children.
“It is certainly a debatable issue,” said Buchipudi Sambasiva Reddy, who is chairman of the region’s Medical Council. “We will discuss this at our next governing counsel meeting.”
According to a 2015 report by the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, women over 44 using their own eggs have on average a 0.6 percent chance of bringing a healthy baby to full term.
