66 Year Old Woman Is Pregnant After IVF
Wealthy Woman Breaks the Record for Britain's Oldest Mother
May 28, 2009
Her unborn baby was conceived via IVF in a clinic in Ukraine because clinics in Britain, where Miss Adeney is from, refuse to provide fertility treatments for women over the age of 50. Those who rely on the National Health Service's one free attempt at IVF cannot be older than 40. While there is no legal cut off point for private clinics in terms of a woman's age, there is a shortage of donor eggs so priority will be given to younger women who have more chance of conceiving.
Delayed Motherhood
Elizabeth Adeney never had children in her younger adult life. She became a successful career woman and now owns a textile business. At the age of 66, she is Britain's oldest mother. She isn't the only one to have made this unconventional decision.
Patricia Rashbrook held the title in 2006 when she gave birth to a son, JJ, at the age of 62. Her case was particularly controversial because she already had three grown up children from a previous marriage, aged 18, 22 and 26.
Susan Tollefsen followed in 2007, giving birth to a baby girl, Freya, at the age of 57, after egg and sperm donation at a Russian fertility clinic. She had spent a large portion of her adult life being a carer to her sick parents and left marriage and a life of her own rather late. She didn't meet her husband until they were past the age at which people normally have children.
No Follow Up
Concern has been growing about the ethics and standard of care provided by private IVF clinics abroad. When questioned about the after-care provided for older IVF patients, Mr Altarzhevsky, from a fertility clinic in the Ukraine, said
"There is no feedback or follow-up procedure. We have no way of knowing what happens later to them or their babies. We do not call them and they do not, as a rule, call us.”
Women who are in their 50s and 60s may be at increased risk of pregnancy complications. They will also more than likely be offered a caesarean section which itself carries additional risks for the older mother.
Setting aside the argument of whether women that age should be new mothers, IVF clinics have a duty to their patients to ensure quality of care and all mothers should be followed up after the birth of their baby.
79 with a Teen
Critics point out that when Elizabeth Adeney's child reaches 13, her mother will be 79, assuming she lives to that age. Some ethicists suggest that people are putting the desire for a baby before the needs of the child. What if the mother dies before her child has reached adulthood? Who will take guardianship of that child? A relative? The state? They argue that subjecting their child to the loss of a parent at an early age is selfish.
What about Little League and soccer practice? Is an elderly mother physically fit enough to participate in activities with their child?
What will the child think? Older mothers have been mistaken for grandparents. Would the child be embarrassed to arrive at the school gate with a much older mother?
Certainly any grandchildren would never have the opportunity to know their grandparents.
The Advantages to Late Motherhood
Women in their 50s and 60s will have gone through the menopause already, so any eggs they use will not be their own. This means that the baby won't have any increased risk of Downs Syndrome or other abnormality that might be present in women over the age of 36 who have conceived naturally. A baby born to a 60 year old is therefore more likely to be healthy than a baby conceived normally to a 40 year old.
Research at Finland's University of Turku has found that the older a woman is when she gives birth, the longer her life span will be. The researchers studied the Sami, a population in Scandinavia who were resident up until the 19th century. They discovered that having children young or having lots of children didn't make a difference to life span but that if a mother had a child when she was older, she would live longer.
They theorized that fertility ages at the same time as the rest of the body, so if the mother was still fertile, she would live longer.
It might also a back up from nature. If an older person had a baby, she would have to live longer to ensure its survival.
