66-Year-Old British Woman to Give Birth

In about a month, Elizabeth Adeney of England will become a first-time mother, among the oldest new mothers in the world, according to abcnews.com.

Adeney, a career woman in good health, is not the oldest woman known worldwide to have given birth. That title is held by 70-year-old Omkari Panwar of India, who delivered twins in 2008. Both pregnancies were the result of in vitro fertilization.

The oldest American woman had been Aleta James of New York, who had twins at age 57 in 2004. But since then there have been several news reports of women in their late 50's, and a few in their early 60's, acting as surrogates for their daughters.

Still, Sarah of biblical history has all of them beat, having given birth at age 90, though she probably was closer to 91 years old, "according to the time of life" mentioned in Genesis 18 and 21 chapters.

According to abcnews.com, there is ongoing debate among medical experts and the public about the wisdom of such births in older women, usually by IVF. Some people believe having a baby at that age is the height of selfishness, while others think it's a miracle, or it's the woman's own business.

Some say it's not something that need cause controversy since there is no mad rush by hordes of senior women to give birth. There has been a trend among American middle-aged women, as demonstrated by several American actresses, to delay childbirth until their 40's.

Ironically, older women having children was something that was not uncommon in the United States until about 50 years ago, possibly when the birth control pill became popular.

Whether they agree or not, medical experts do say that the older a woman is the greater the risks of complications with both baby and mother, including high blood pressure, diabetes, pre-term labor in the mother and Down Syndrome in the child. Most IVF clinics in the U.S. and Britain do not provide treatment for women over 50 years old. Adeney went to the Ukraine for her treatments, according to abcnews.com.

WHAT YOU YOU THINK?

Do you know of any middle-age or older women who have given birth? Do you have a family history of relatives having children long past today's standard of the ideal childbearing age?

Other reading:

How Old Is Too Old to Become a Mom?