Indian Woman in Her 70s Gives Birth to Baby Boy

An Indian woman in her 70s has given birth to a baby boy, but doctors are concerned.

A couple in India, who have been married for 46 years, have surprised the world after the mother gave birth to their first child, a healthy baby boy after falling pregnant to her 79-year-old husband.

They have named their son, Arman who was born healthy and weighing 4.4lb (2kg).

Daljinder Kaur, from Amritsar city, has never felt happier for the blessing especially that she and her husband, Mohinder Singh Gill have endured two years of IVF treatment in a clinic in the northern state of Haryana. She told AFP:

“God heard our prayers. My life feels complete now. I am looking after the baby all by myself. I feel so full of energy. My husband is also very caring and helps me as much as he can,” she said.

The clinic told AFP that the couple’s baby was conceived after two previous unsuccessful attempts using Kaur’s egg and her husband’s sperm. Kaur said they thought of giving IVF a try as they desperately wanted to have a baby of their own.

Kaur is now one of the oldest mothers to give birth, but her exact age was not clear. She said that she is about 70 but she does not have a birth certificate, which is common in India.

However, Anurag Bishnoi, an embryologist and owner of the National Fertility and Test Tube Baby centre in Hisar, told the Guardian he believed the mother could be 72.

He said that he was hesitant at first to perform the procedure due to Kaur’s age and she also looked frail. However, a series of medical tests, including cardio checks, revealed that she was fit and healthy. “They were donor eggs. She had two attempts and then a gap of six months. And then on the third attempt, it was successful,” he said.

Bishnoi said that he recognised that there are those who consider IVF in older women as unethical.

“My point is if you put a restriction [on receiving IVF treatment] of 45 or 50 years, you will have to put a restriction on the males also. If they are talking about ethics, the [age] should be the same for both,” he said.

Fertility expert Sunil Jindal also raised questions about the future of a child born to elderly parents, which include health issues for the mother. “There are ethical issues. In my opinion it is unfair to do such a procedure on a woman who is over 60. The sheer fact that a woman in her 70s has to carry the weight of a child in her womb for nine months is stressful. Then the question comes how are the parents going to look after the baby? That is also quite a task,” Jindal told AFP.

Hrishikesh Pai, head of India’s federation of 31,000 gynaecologists, called Dr Bishnoi a “rogue doctor” and “repeat offender”. He urged politicians to introduce regulations preventing his practice.

“We condemn this totally. With science, you can make a 90-year-old person pregnant, what’s the big deal? The question is not about technicalities, it’s about ethics. Our responsibility to the patient. This man is an upstart, he doesn’t represent us. He needs to be banned,” he said.

Fertility clinics in India  have been under critical examination during the recent years, as the medical council has lobbied for a ban on IVF treatments for women aged 50 and above.

Sources: News.com.au and Theguardian.com