Babies & Kids Blog » 66 Years Old and Pregnant

Elizabeth (Munro) Adeney is a 66-year-old business woman from England.  Instead of preparing for retirement, she’s due to give birth to her first child in June.  Her friends say she is feisty and just as healthy as many younger women.  Elizabeth wants a child to leave her estate to when she dies.  Elizabeth underwent IVF (in vitro fertilization) in Ukraine, where standards for IVF are very lax.

Shockingly, Elizabeth is not the only senior citizen choosing to give birth late in life.  In Spain, Carmela Bousada became a mother at age 67 and Omkari Panwar from India delivered twins at 70.  The oldest mother with a baby in the United States is Aleta St. James, at age 57.

Omkari Panwar

Pregnancy past age 40 brings about many complications and the older the mother the more serious and risky it becomes.   When Omkari was due to deliver her twins via C-section, doctors were not even sure if she would survive the surgery.  Diabetes, high blood pressure, and preterm labor are common among older pregnant women.

But is it “wrong”?  On one hand, why shouldn’t a woman have a child, regardless of her age?  If she has the means and is physically able to care for a child she has every right to do it.  Motherhood should be judged on ability, not on how old you are.  Some would say that it is better for a child to have a mother with the financial means and the emotional and intellectual maturity to raise a child instead of a younger and possibly disadvantaged woman.

On the other hand, IVF treatments were designed for women of childbearing age whom due to biological complications (infertility) can not physically conceive.  Is it fair to allow older women that chose not to have children in their younger years to undergo IVF?

My personal feelings about the issue lean more towards wondering why these older women choose not to adopt.  Do you know how many babies in England alone are waiting to be adopted by somebody like Elizabeth?  Feeling the yearn to become a mother is normal, but isn’t a little selfish to insist on going to dramatic lengths to birth your own biological child?  Why?  So they’ll look just like you?  Does it really matter?

At 30 years old and the mother of one, I’m already exhausted.  I’m going to use my golden years to relax!  Retirement is a reward for all we go through with our careers, families and children. Who wants to chase a toddler when you could be playing bingo and knitting?

photo sources: ABC news, Times Online UK