67-year-old Spaniard gives birth to twins

[Pale Blue Dot]

A 67-year-old Spanish woman became the world's oldest mother after she gave birth to twins in the northern city of Barcelona on Saturday, a hospital official said.

The woman, whose identity has not been revealed by Sant Pau hospital, gave birth by Caesarian section on Saturday, having previously undergone in vitro fertilization in the United States, according to the national news agency EFE.

Originally from the southern region of Andalucia, the new mother chose the Barcelona hospital because it specializes in high-risk births.

The mother and twins are all doing well, though the babies are both in incubators, a hospital spokeswoman said. The hospital did not reveal the gender of the twins.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/30/old.mom.ap/index.html

[WindRavenX]

1. thank god! What with the world being so dangerously underpopulated and all...

:eyes:

[rainbow4321]

38. Maybe not the world but there are countries

that are worried about underpopulation. Couldn't find the original article that I read a few days ago, but Germany is offering families around $35,000 for every child that they have after Jan 2007.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/14/news/germany.php

At a time when many European countries are struggling to reverse falling birth rates, Germany's coalition government agreed Wednesday on a financial package that will compensate professional women to take a year's leave to have children and then return to work.

The decision, a major break with traditional family policy, represented a victory for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrat family minister, Ursula von der Leyen. Both have been fighting hard to modernize their conservative bloc, which until now wanted even educated women to stay at home and depend on the man as the breadwinner.

Under the terms of Wednesday's draft law, which could be passed by Parliament by September, working women will receive 67 percent of their net pay if they take time off after birth. The arrangement will be limited to one year and the pay may not exceed €1,800 a month. Men, too, will be eligible, with an additional two months of paid leave if the parents share the time off. Women whose net income is below €1,000 a month will receive the entire net salary.

The plan will be financed by scrapping the current system under which nonworking women and women in jobs with low pay receive €300 a month when they have a child, for up to three years, in addition to other welfare benefits.

[LiberalFighter]

63. Here in Indiana some nutjob offering a bill to allow deduction for stillbirths

Source

[Megahurtz]

62. No Fucking Kidding! n/t

[silverweb]

2. WHY???

:wow:

[Pale Blue Dot]

3. She's in the Guiness Book?

:shrug:

[Fridays Child]

4. Chasing after twins won't be easy for a woman of her age.

May she have plenty of stamina and flexible joints.

[Catch22Dem]

5. Kids will likely not remember their mother

Why'd she do it?

[uppityperson]

6. I hope things go well for the children, the mother, the family. eom

[ThingsGottaChange]

7. I'd like to know

what the hell kind of clinic would do in vitro on a 67 year old. But, I guess if the money was right...

[Bobbieo]

8. I often resented the fact that my mother gave birth to me at age 40

She was too old to particpate in the activities that my friend's mothers attended. To top it off, I was an only child.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

9. I had my youngest at age 39...

What kind of activities am I too old for? :D

[Bobbieo]

10. Beer busts for one - SA!!!!!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. I must admit,

I can't drink as I used to...But I don't know many moms who can, healthily.

[fortyfeetunder]

32. So why would a mom (of any age) be interested in a beer bust?

Like one of the responsibilities of a parent is to model responsible behaviour.

(or did you forget the :sarcasm: in your letter?)

[superconnected]

28. my mother gave birth to me at 23, she also felt she was too old

and never participated.

I got over it.

[Arugula Latte]

36. My friend just gave birth to her one (and she says only) child. She's 40.

I hope the little girl won't be upset growing up that she has an older mother. The mother also has health issues.

However, to top THAT, I have relatives who had their first child last year -- Mom was 45 when she gave birth/Dad was 57. Yikes!

[shanti]

42. shoot

i often feel that i was too old to have my youngest when i was 35. he's 16 now and wears me out! can't even IMAGINE having one at 67!!!!

[pecwae]

15. My daughter cannot find a clinic

that will do this for her because she is unmarried at 34. I suppose there is a certain presumption about that.

I find what the woman in the OP has done to be incredibly selfish.

[fleabert]

60. one that isn't too concerned about their success rates...

I am in my early thirties and have been told that there are limited clinics that will take me without insisting on a donor egg based on my situation, because they only want candidates that are likely to get pregnant. Ironic how those with difficulty conceiving are the ones fertility clinics don't want! I'd love to get the name of the clinic she went to...

[Eurobabe]

12. Disgusting use of scientific knowledge.

[xultar]

13. Why, I'm 37 single, never married with no prospects. I'd consider it.

I'm also considering adoption...but I'd like to have my own bio kid too.

You know nothing of her situation...she could have had cancer @ had her eggs frozen or something.

[tanyev]

17. Would you consider it when you are 67?

[xultar]

18. Yup. Especially if my health is great. Why not.

[tanyev]

19. You go right ahead. Last thing I want to do when I'm 67 is chase

after two little kids unless they are grandchildren that can be handed back to their parents.

[xultar]

20. That's you. But it's all about CHOICE so don't damn others for theirs. I don't have the luxury

of having kids so I won't have any grand kids.

[pitohui]

23. ABSOLUTELY damn others for bad choices

since we don't have laws, our only option is peer pressure

decent people don't go around popping out babies they can't take care of, period, we have every right and duty to criticize those who do to discourage others from doing likewise

having menopause babies was once a fairly tacky thing to do, then it became widely accepted, result -- more babies in an already over-populated world and those babies born very often the wealthiest who will have the largest destructive ecological impact on the planet just by existing

the individual's choices in those cases should be criticized because in the long run their individual choice hurts the entire planet and all we have to work with is peer pressure and social judgment -- or would you rather have "one child" laws like in china to control the madness?

i don't object to madonna adopting as many children as she likes, i do object to her popularizing the idea that it is somehow "cool" to get pregnant after 40, see the difference?

there are too many children already here to be wasting precious resources on stunts like this frankly

as another poster said, i'm sure the money was right and that's all that matters to the libertarian worshipper of choice tho -- the money

planetary survival be damned, the money men got theirs

[xultar]

24. How do you know she can't take care of her children? Peer presure...then you should be a Republican!

To make sure people do what you want despite the fact they have CHOICE in the matter.

You DAMN women who cannot have kids young in life for wanting to have them later?

[Maine-ah]

55. I'm with you.

It's all choice. Ours was a surprise after 11 years.

And for those that say it's selfish to have a child at 67, let me point this out to you. Nobody knows when they're going to die. It must have been selfish for my dad to get my mom prego at age 30, since he died when he was 50...c'mon...get a grip, it's not your body, it's not your choice.

[AlwaysQuestion]

53. I'm with you

I couldn't agree with you more. Besides, it's not in the giving birth that makes one a mother anyway. It is in the rearing of a child. I can remember several months after my daughter was born, there appeared in the paper a story about two babies who had been switched at birth. I looked down at my daughter who was playing on the floor and thought that if someone came to the door right now to tell me that she was not really mine but belonged to another, there would have been no way short of hog tying me that I would have relinguished that precious child at my feet. No way. It was then that I realized fully that my love for my daughter was in no way connected to my having given birth to her--that it was due instead to all the time I had spent bonding with her. Funny thing, too, is that she in no way resembled either my husband or me. It wasn't until she was well into her teens that we began to see how much she resembled one of my brother-in-laws' daughter.

I'm all for choice as much as possible. However, as the saying goes we're not an island unto ourselves. Very often for the betterment of society we are called upon to give up certain areas of choice. And we do it all the time. We're nations of laws that restrict individual choice. When we see the overall benefit of such laws, we law abiding citizens fall into line with not so much as a whimper. In as many cases as possible I would prefer peer pressure to actual laws, but if that doesn't work, then I think we do need laws to whip the stragglers into shape.

You gave some excellent reasons why people in their 50's and 60's should not have access to any treatment that would allow them, against all laws of nature, to give birth to children. Now, if it should happen naturally as a freak accident, then so be it. Otherwise, no. There is a very good reason why child bearing years are limited by nature--and you named them too.

Ya wanna be a mom or a dad, adopt, adopt, adopt.

[boilinmad]

58. BINGO!!!...

.....beautifully said!!!:applause: :applause: :applause:

[sleepyhead]

39. Well, xultar, here's what I did.

I married a "pre-used" husband with grown children and now I have a beautiful granddaughter without having to lift a finger raising a kid. Lucky me! (Not that I recommend that as a standard procedure or anything - it just worked out well for me, as I don't think that I would have the patience to raise a child!)

[spotbird]

40. The twins didn't have

a choice about having a mothier unlikely to survive their teen years.

[xultar]

41. You can't guarantee a woman in her 20's will survive through her kids teens.

[phylny]

46. I'm 48 and I KNOW I couldn't possibly run after toddlers all

day long.

I have hard enough time having any energy left over for my own now after work, at ages 21, 18, and 15.

[Eurobabe]

33. You are 37, that is fine. Having babies at 67 is

irresponsible. You just don't have the energy at 67 to deal with infants and toddlers, that is the honest truth. I had my kids when I was 22 & 24.

[badgerpup]

43. Sixty-seven is not an optimum age for making healthy babies...

Depending on where she has lived, she has had that many years exposure to gods-know-what; which means her ova were exposed as well.
Frankly, we are just not biologically geared to be reproducing much past our 40's.

She had to use in vitro. I'm wondering how much outside support she needed hormone-wise to be able to sustain this pregnancy, so even if the ova weren't hers, there was still a question of pre-natal health issues.

I just hope the kids will be OK...and that there is a good strong family support system.

[CTyankee]

69. I'm 67 and I would not even want to know what my ova had been

exposed to! It can't be good to reverse your menopause and install a pregnancy in an old, shrunken uterus (which is what happens as the uterus ages). Don't get me wrong: I love my uterus. It's nice, it nourished 3 babies and worked great at labor. It's healthy and happy in retirement. I wouldn't mess with Mother Nature...

[Auntie Bush]

48. Good for you ! Plus this woman must have money or she couldn't

have afforded the-Vitro and traveling around the world in the first place. People with money can afford Nannies to do most of the running around. Maybe all the mother has to do is enjoy the thrill of loving her own babies. What's so wrong with that? Every woman deserves to enjoy the experience of Mother's love...there is none other like it.

There is no reason she couldn't live to be 87 and the kids could have a mother till they were 20 years old. Ask them then if they regret what their mother did. I'll bet they will be thankful she made that decision...cause if she didn't...they never would have been given life. They should thank her from the bottom of their hearts for wanting them so badly.

Some feel she shouldn't have the babies because she couldn't care for them...well what about women in wheelchairs? I never heard anyone complain that they shouldn't give birth if possible...so why not this woman? Sometimes we tend to be awfully judgemental. Frankly, if anyone deserves to be critisized...it's the DR. who performed the in-Vitro.

No woman should be denied the pleasure of having their own children to love...if it's humanly possible. Anyway that's my 2 cents worth.

[midnight]

14. Amazing. For women who have worked and been able to

become economically successful this is another option for them to become mommys.

[pitohui]

21. if you're successful at 67 why would you want to be a "mommy"?

this sounds more like something that would appeal to someone who has been miserable her whole life and her last chance to be important is a selfish stunt like this

the woman is 67, she is not going to be raising these twins, some servant is

jesus

i think it's pitiful enough when the madonnas and the other post-forty "stars" whose stardom has faded decide to pop out a baby to draw attention to themselves

6 billion miracles are enough

i would make these procedures illegal for any woman over age 35, for that matter, any man over age 35 as well

there is NO excuse for extending the period of time over which a human being can have children in this dangerously over-populated and dying world

this woman's desire to make the record books and self-aggrandize through children (always the last gasp of the loser is to live thru her children) should not be put ahead of the planet's need not to have to put up with such a huge human load

it's a moral issue, really

the libertarians among us don't care if the earth is killed as long as a woman can pop out a baby at any age so that somebody can make a buck somewhere, i'm sorry, but your right to do anything you like should end when it kills the planet where ALL of us have to live

i feel for the children who have been deliberately cheated of their chance to have a young, healthy mother who can actually participate in raising them

anyone who thinks a 67 year old is the same as a 27 year old needs to get out more and actually spend time with their grandparents and great grandparents, actually volunteer at the nursing homes -- half of all people over age 85 have alzheimer's disease, and that's just one possible fate

we get older, it's reality, delusional people shouldn't be allowed to breed in the first place if you ask me

[xultar]

25. WTF????????????????? No one said a 67 yr is the same as 27.

I'll never have to read any of your posts again.

[goclark]

30. I'm with you xultar

Who are WE to determine who should and who shouldn't have children.

If a 67 year old woman has a baby ~ that is wonderful in my eyes!
She could live to be 100 and they would have many special moments together.
Or she could die tomorrow and have given life to the child that will grow up to discover the cure for cancer.

There are many 22+ year old mothers that die in child birth or within 2/3 years after the birth.

Our friend was 27 and died two weeks after giving birth.

Now her husband, his sister and the extended family are loving taking care of the new baby.

I just saw the pictures and the baby is precious.


The family feels they are blessed that the baby was born, so are we.

[FlaGranny]

45. Well, from someone who is 5 months

away from the age of 67, I think she's NUTS, although there is no law against being nuts, nor should there be.

[goclark]

47. To each her own nt

[Liberal_in_LA]

35. double standard

Let me make it clear: I wouldn't want a baby at age 67 nor would I want my mom to have given birth to me at age 67.

That said... why is ok for a 18 year to give birth to the first of 8 children yet it's tragedy for a older person to have two kids later on? Who's being more responsible?

Los Angeles is chock full of families living 10 to a one bedroom apartment. No one would dare question their right to produce more children.

[Gormy Cuss]

49. It's not a double standard. Pregnancy at 18 is a natural biological function.

If the 67 year old was still fertile, then by all means she should have the right to reproduce. Some women retain their fertility into their early 50s and have babies at that age, but most don't. One ethical question is whether it is appropriate to use reproductive technologies in a person of such advanced age when the risks of medical complications are quite high to both the mother and the children and the likelihood of maternal mortality before the children are raised is much higher.

On the issue of whether the mother can be expected to care for these children until they reach adult age, it's hard to say for certain that any parent will be able to do so, but the odds are against it with a person over the age of 65. Perhaps this woman comes from a wealthy family of long-lived people who avoid dementia in old age. Perhaps the woman is married to a much younger man. Perhaps these considerations were made before a doctor agreed to provide the in vitro treatments. Doctors do reject women for in vitro all the time. For some reason this doctor or doctors agreed to assist this woman. Either they did it out of ego or they did it because they did not see any ethical reason to turn her down.

As for no one questioning the right of someone to have eight children, it happens all the time. The critical choice issue is not questioning other's reproductive decisions, it's making laws dictating the choices.

[Liberal_in_LA]

66. Yeah but...

Gormy Cuss said: If the 67 year old was still fertile, then by all means she should have the right to reproduce. Some women retain their fertility into their early 50s and have babies at that age, but most don't. One ethical question is whether it is appropriate to use reproductive technologies in a person of such advanced age when the risks of medical complications are quite high to both the mother and the children and the likelihood of maternal mortality before the children are raised is much higher.
****************************************************************************************

Your argument sounds a little like the argument one hears against abortion. Righties argue that anti-choice laws are for the women's own good. That she doesn't know she's "killing her baby", etc... I don't believe in overriding the woman's choices for her own goood. Let's not treat women like children.

[Gormy Cuss]

70. No, read it again.

I stated very clearly that if reproduction happens naturally at any age it's not anyone's business but hers.

Ethical considerations are part of the decision matrix with many medical interventions. Try getting an organ transplant for an elderly patient, for example. In the case of fertility, there are real health risks associated with pregnancy for the mother and child and many of them increase with the age of the mother. There are real risks of adverse outcomes with multiple pregnancies. I also state very clearly that it was likely that the doctor(s) made the decision after weighing the ethical issues.

As for treating women like children, that's a strawman because current technology requires human gestation in females only. If there is ever a male equivalent then ethical considerations would come into play before interventions too.

[Megahurtz]

61. I Totally Agree with Your Post. n/t

[Mend]

16. she will probably not be around when they become teenagers...

that's a plan.

[pitohui]

22. 50 % of people over age 85 have alzheimer's

the chances are decent if she is around that she will be in such miserable shape that she throws a shadow over their years to be young and carefree

it is true that anyone at any age can become ill or injured, no one knows this better than i, as i was born w. problems HOWEVER in fairness to the children seems to me that people should think more about their kids and less about their ego

the child should be had when you have a reasonable chance of being able to care for her mentally and physically, not as an afterthought for a servant to raise

one of my friends was fathered at 50, his memories of his dad are of his dad in bed, incapacitated, forever, he never knew his dad as a man or anything but an invalid

[bushcrab]

26. Now THAT's a lot of diapers!

Not only for mom, but now the twins too. There's no way this gal is married!

[superconnected]

27. Guess if you can afford to pay they cost, they do it no matter who/how old

you are.

[superconnected]

29. I hope she has a lot of family to take care of them.

Sure there's enough people in the world. I don't think all women should stop having children because of it. Women just need to stop having 8-17 kids in many of the worlds countries.

The mother's old, but maybe she did make plans for how the kids will be raised.

I know of a 20 smth that died 2 years ago up the street from me and left 5 kids that got broken up to 3 different fathers' familys. Not all 20 yo's live and not all people die before they are 85, or
have alzheimers.

best wishes to the kids and the new mom.

[Liberal_in_LA]

37. choices

Attached is a sad sob story about a family of 8 trying to rent a studio apartment. Which family would you rather be born into.. the 67 year old (who obviously has resources) or the younger poor family.

My point: Double standards - it's socially unacceptable to question the family size of young folks, no matter what their situation. But when we read these stories about older women it's ok to point and guffaw.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-apartment24oct24,0,7422913.story?page=3&coll=la-home-headlines

"They concentrated on the dingy buildings, where they might have a chance, and ignored completely the luxury complexes springing up across the inner city, where rents start at $1,800 a month.

Still, Ibarra rarely got past a few questions. Either the rent was too high or their family was too large. She found a one-bedroom for $850 a month, but the manager would take only four people, no matter how many times she asked. A single room was going for $500, but when Ibarra gave the family's size, the landlord just laughed"

[THUNDER HANDS]

31. um...aren't we the pro-choice party?

reading this thread makes me think maybe not. Or does choice only extend to terminating a pregnancy and not making one?

[goclark]

34. I was thinking the same thing

Seems it is "A OK "for King George I and Queen Barbs to bring a no good fool onto the planet because they were the "right age" and had "enough $$'s" to have babies.

Well if we are Pro Choice than I would have to go along with the Chimp's right to be born.

And,if he has the right to be born than surely a 67 year old woman has a right to give birth if she is able.

In fact, her doing so gives hope to thousands of women that are older than 50 years.

Since people are living longer and having a better quality of life, so be it!

My g g grandmother gave birth when she was 50 years old to my great grandfather.
As a former slave, she probably would have qualified for those" that didn't have the resources" to have eleven beautiful and productive children.

PEACE and COMPASSION in the New Year

[Nihil]

59. Maybe you missed the point?

> surely a 67 year old woman has a right to give birth if she is able.

The point is that she WASN'T able to do this without considerable medical
assistance. Given that it is biologically impossible for a 67 year old woman
to naturally conceive and give birth at that age, damn right it is wrong for
this travesty to take place.

At that age, people are not allowed to adopt an infant so there is no
way that they should be allowed to go through IVF treatment.

(FWIW I think it is morally wrong for a 67 year old man to father a child at
that age too though there is less of a biological obstacle to enforce it.)

[Henny Penny]

64. A lot of people cant have children without medical intervention...

doesn't mean they shouldn't get that help.

A lot of the objections to cases like these involve people thinking "that child can't have a perfect life because their parent is old."
And you can change time or venue and replace "old" with "gay", "poor", "jewish", "a gypsy", "a communist", whatever the "perfect society" deems less than perfect.

Well life isn't perfect, in fact almost everybody on planet earth can't have a perfect life because their parents didn't meet the high standards laid down by western civilisation. From the deserts of Sudan to Beverly Hills. Life ain't perfect.

Get over it.

Now make the best of it and stop wasting time judging other's shortcomings.

[Nihil]

67. You appear to have a comprehension problem.

> And you can change time or venue and replace "old" with "gay", "poor",
> "jewish", "a gypsy", "a communist", whatever the "perfect society" deems
> less than perfect.

If you think the above sentence makes any sense whatsoever then you have
a real problem there.

Clue: Your "replacements" and the concept of the "perfect society" are
artificial classifications. Unless you have some wonderful new discovery
to reveal to the world, you cannot put "old" into that list as the aging
process is a physical one that affects everyone, no distinctions, and
death is unavoidable, regardless of the state of society.

Apples & oranges. We're not discussing "perfection" here, we are talking
about reality.

> A lot of people cant have children without medical intervention...
> doesn't mean they shouldn't get that help.

Did I say that? If they are of childbearing age and the "problem" is
a mechanical issue with one of the partners then of course they should
be given a chance. My concern arises when such techniques are applied
to someone who is well past natural childbearing age.

> Get over it.

*I* have nothing to "get over" ... maybe you're projecting again?

> Now make the best of it and stop wasting time judging other's
> shortcomings.

Ha! One poster on an internet forum tells another poster on an internet
forum to "stop wasting time"? Talk about irony ...
:P

[marshall]

57. I totally agree about the double standard

Imagine a thread about a 14 year old giving birth (and keeping the child), and imagine comment after comment criticizing her for having a child while she is still in school--will the child resent the mother for being either in classes or out partying instead of staying home?

[SemperEadem]

44. she gave birth to her caretakers

[KittyWampus]

50. Would people have an issue if this was a man who fathered a child at 67?

[nodehopper]

52. this is the best comment on this thread

the double standard is alive and well. no one says crap about men fathering children into their seventies.

[bleedingheart]

54. actually I feel that way about men that do that...my father was 50

when I was born. He was dead by the time I was 10.

I was born to much older parents before it became hip to do so....and I have to tell you that having parents who won't play catch, won't play basketball...and even found board games too much...well that was not fun.

[Henny Penny]

56. aww... diddums!

Stop reproduction after 30!

:sarcasm:

Whats not fun is having a parent who's in jail, on drugs, alcoholic, violent, a child abuser....

Good luck to the three of them I say.

[Canuckistanian]

51. Just think, when the kids become teenagers, she'll be 80 years old.

Now, that's a "generation gap".

[bleedingheart]

65. Do retirement communities allow children?

and do they provide daycare for both parent and child?

[peacebuzzard]

68. Men in their 70's father children.

My dad in particular had his long wished for son at the age of 71.
He never saw him grow up, since dad died at the age of 78.