A 74-year-old Indian woman gave birth to twins on Thursday, and she is reportedly the oldest woman on record to deliver a child.
The Bangalore Mirror reported that Erramatti Mangayamma, from the district of Andhra Pradesh, gave birth to twin girls with her husband Raja Rao, 78, by her side.
Mangayamma and Rao have been married for 57 years, and they have always wanted children. Yet, since Mangayamma went through menopause some 30 years ago, in vitro fertilization seemed to be the only option.
Mangayamma said she was inspired to try IVF after a woman she knew became pregnant and delivered a child at the age of 55. The woman suggested that Mangayamma try the procedure, telling her that it was possible to conceive. When Mangayamma approached her husband with the idea, he agreed to give it a try. The couple used their savings to pay for the procedure.
Mangayamma reached out to a fertility specialist in November of last year. The specialist, known only as Dr. Umasankar, was reportedly surprised to hear about Mangayamma’s longing for children. However, since she was in good health, he was happy to help the couple try to conceive. The doctor used an egg from another woman and fertilized it with Rao’s sperm. The IVF process began in November and it proved to successful without much difficulty as Mangayamma conceived in January.
It was only during her pregnancy that doctors realized that Mangayamma was carrying twins. Because of the mother’s age, the babies were successfully delivered through a cesarean section at Ahalya IVF and nursing home in Guntur City.
Mangayamma and the babies are reportedly in good health. The happy parents did not want to reveal too much about the twins, but the Bangalore Mirror reported that the girls weighed almost 4 pounds when they were born.
#AndhraPradesh : 74-year-old woman Erramatti Mangayamma gives birth to twins through IVF (In vitro fertilisation) method, in Guntur today. pic.twitter.com/P3M8zI4J2j
— NewsMobile (@NewsMobileIndia) September 5, 2019
Doctors want the new mother to remain hospitalized, so she can be monitored by specialists, including a gynecologist, cardiologist, and pulmonologist. That being said, Umasankar said he did not think Mangayamma would have any post-delivery complications. The doctor said that she would not be able to breastfeed the babies, but added that it was not a problem since she could use milk from the hospital’s milk bank.
Umasankar said that Mangayamma is the oldest woman on record to give birth, adding that the last record was held by Daljeender Kaur from Rajasthan, who was 70-years-old when she gave birth to a child on April 19, 2016.
