Woman aged 66 gives birth to twins in Spain to become world's oldest mother

[Al-khiyal]

Exhausted and short of money, the world’s oldest mother is seeking a younger husband to be a father to her twins.

In her first interview since giving birth last month, Carmela Bousada, a 67-year-old Spaniard, said that she had sold her house in Andalucia to raise the £30,000 to pay for fertility treatment at a California clinic, where she lied about her age. The clinic’s age limit is 55.

The case has provoked an angry debate in Spain, where conservatives bemoan the decline of the traditional family and the waning influence of the Roman Catholic Church. Many have asked who will care for the twin boys when Ms Bousada becomes too elderly.

Ms Bousada, a retired shop worker, had lived with her own mother all her life until her mother died in 2005, aged 101. She is said to have decided to get in-vitro fertilisation after seeing magazine articles about the success of increasingly elderly women in getting pregnant.

Ms Bousada told the News of the World: “I think everyone should become a mother at the right time for them. 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 dreamt of.

“I would have loved to have got pregnant with a man by my side but it didn’t work out that way. Now I’ve got to look for a dad for the kids. I’d like to meet someone a bit younger than me. They’d have to like the children, of course.”

The Pacific Fertility Centre in Los Angeles confirmed that it had treated Ms Bousada, but had not known her true age. It added that the clinic’s procedures would have required her to show a passport.

Ms Bousada admitted that she was “exhausted” from caring for the two babies, feeling her age for the first time. “Christian was awake the whole time last night,” she said. “The night before it was Pau. If it’s not one, it’s the other.”

She plans to move from Cádiz to Barcelona, where she gave birth. Friends fear that she will suffer without the help of her sister-in-law, who has been by her side since the births.

The newspaper reported that she expects to survive on her state pension of about £100 a week. However, it seemed likely that the newspaper had paid her a substantial amount of money for its exclusive. She had previously declined to speak to reporters.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to cope,” she said. “When they begin toddling I’ll get one of those playpens and put them in there. I might put them in a nursery while I get some rest.

“My mum lived to be 101 and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. I might have to have surgery to keep my looks. But for now if I have any spare money I’ll spend it on the boys. Look, I’m a mum who’s a bit older. It’s no big deal.”

A spokeswoman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which regulates IVF treatments in the UK, said: “Every clinic in the UK has to take account of the welfare of the child, and one of the main factors they have to consider is the age of the mother and father. Although legally there is no upper age limit for receiving IVF, the common attitude is that treatment will be granted only at an age where a woman could otherwise conceive naturally.

“Of the 97 registered fertility clinics in Britain, the vast majority impose a maximum age limit of 45. Only a few extend that to 50 in rare cases, so a woman much older than that would have to lie about her age to such an extent that it probably could not happen here.”

Woman who lied to get IVF at 67 seeks a younger husband to help with twins

[Al-khiyal]

Josephine Quintavalle is the founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, whose principal tenet is absolute respect for the embryo and Dr Daniel Sokol is a medical ethicist at Keele University:

Should older women undergo fertility treatment?

Josephine Quintavalle: It is one of the inevitable outcomes of consumerism that we believe we have the right to have babies on demand. IVF has taken reproduction beyond the limits of what is considered natural — you are buying sperm, buying eggs and creating children. These are not her genetic babies. Older pregnancies are not easy. If you look back at most of the older mothers in the past ten years, they have delivered prematurely, by Caesarean section. The offspring have for the most part shown difficulties. The life expectancy of a mother is obviously extremely important. In having such a late pregnancy, women do things to their own health that are likely to shorten their life expectancy.

Dr Daniel Sokol: The primary consideration must be the welfare of the potential children. Can the child of a 67-year-old woman have a happy, flourishing life? The answer, surely, is “it depends”. It will depend on the health, attitude and socio-economic circumstances of the mother, as well as the personality of the particular child. It is not unimaginable that a sixtysomething woman becomes a wonderful, caring and devoted mother, so I would not answer the question with a categorical “no”.

Should a single woman do this?

Josephine Quintavalle: Ms Bousada’s age is the most significant factor, but her single status is important too. I am very much in favour of fathers. It takes a male and a female to make baby, it should take a male and a female to look after one too — not least because if someone does die, there is someone there to take over. With no partner, no money, her family against her, with a life expectancy inevitably shorter than a younger woman — this has to be the epitome of selfishness, not maternal love.

Dr Daniel Sokol: As with older women, it is particularly important that single women be adequately informed about what IVF entails. Women have duties towards their children. They must ask themselves, “Do I know what this means for myself and my child? Can I provide my child with the chance of a reasonably happy life?” If the answers to these questions are truly positive, then I believe single women should be entitled to IVF.

Raising the ethical questions

[Al-khiyal]

Spanish woman who gave birth through IVF at 66 dies

July 15, 2009 -- A Spanish woman who became the world's oldest mother at the age of 66 has died of cancer just two-and-a-half years after giving birth to twins, raising fresh questions about the ethics of fertility treatment for women past natural childbearing age. Maria del Carmen Bousada, a single mother and retired sales assistant from Cádiz, southern Spain, leaves behind her orphan sons, Pau and Christian. It was unclear who would look after them.

Bousada, who had reportedly been diagnosed with a tumour just a few months after the birth in December 2006, had been living with her sons in a one-bedroom apartment and was being helped by her brother and sister-in-law, who are both in their 70s. They lived off the €600 (£515) she received for her pension and from child benefit payments. Her brother, Ricardo Bousada, reportedly said he had sold the rights to her story to a television company and that the proceeds would go towards raising the children.

Bousada became pregnant after repeated visits to a fertility clinic in Los Angeles, where she lied about her age. She told the Pacific Fertility Clinic that she was 55, the cut-off age. Bousada sold her apartment to pay for the treatment, which she did not start until her own mother, for whom she cared, had died. An 18-year-old girl provided the egg and an Italian-American sperm donor provided the sperm so that, after hormone treatment to reverse menopause, an embryo could be implanted in her uterus. "I picked them from photos in a catalogue," she said of the donors. "It was a bit like studying an estate agent's brochure and choosing a house."

After a difficult pregnancy the twins were born by caesarean section at a clinic in Barcelona, eastern Spain, a week before her 67th birthday. Shortly after giving birth Bousada told the News of the World that she hoped to live until she was 101, like her mother. "Everyone has to have children at the right time for them. This was the right time for me. It was something I always dreamed of," she said. "No one at home knew what I was doing," she added. "I told a few girlfriends that I loved the idea of having a baby, but none of them took me seriously. They thought it was impossible."

The clinic's director, Vicken Sahakian, had already expressed disappointment that Bousada falsified records. He said: "I figured something might happen and wind up being a disaster for these kids, and unfortunately I was right." Regulations for IVF vary greatly around the world and even within Europe, despite EU measures to unify safety standards for donated eggs and sperm. In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) sets no age limit on fertility treatment but doctors are obliged by law to consider the future welfare of any child, which in practice rules out mothers in their 60s. Since Bousada gave birth, two women in India who doctors said were aged 70 have had children following fertility treatment, both last year.

Prof William Ledger, head of the reproductive and developmental medicine unit at Sheffield University medical school and a member of the HFEA, said he believed cases like Bousada's might provide the impetus for closer controls. "It's a shame that policy often comes from these individual tragedies. It's a very, very sad story," he said. "What's good about regulation in the UK is that we put the welfare of the child at the centre. There are many reasons to have misgivings about mothers so old, and I think this case has shown that we are right."

A 66-year-old new mother was "clearly pushing the boundaries of what nature intended", said Tony Rutherford, chairman of the British Fertility Society. His own clinic, in Leeds, would not accept women for treatment who were over 45 as the chances of success with IVF were so small at that age, he said. "Much beyond that, if someone gives birth you're effectively asking them to cope with a teenager, and all the problems that potentially comes with, when they're well into their 60s. This raises very serious questions."

Josephine Quintavalle from the Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a pro-life pressure group which campaigns on IVF issues in the UK, said the primary problem was a general unwillingness to accept the limits of ageing when it came to parenthood. "We get older, it's the human condition, accept it. Move on to the next stage of life and live it to the full, but don't expect to be able to have children at any cost," she said. "If a woman in her late 60s announced she was going to go and play at Wimbledon she would be laughed at. Yet for some reason, when a woman of the same age decides she want to be a mother it's OK."

Bousada herself, who had never been married, told the News of the World that her family would look after the boys if she died. "They will never be alone," she said. "There are lots of young people in our family."