A 74-year-old Indian woman gave birth to twins through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment on Thursday.
Yerramatti Mangayamma, from southern India's Guntur district, was unable to get pregnant after marrying her husband in 1962. Mangayamma conceived the twins in the first round of IVF and was being monitored by three teams of heath professionals, her doctor said.
"I am very happy. God has answered our prayers," she told reporters after giving birth.
The twins, born by caesarean section, were reportedly doing well. The mother's doctor Sanakkayala Umashankar said he couldn't answer questions about the ethics of giving IVF to a woman in her 70s.
"She was referred to us by a medical board who declared she was healthy enough to go through the procedure. To me it was just another case."
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At 74, Mangayamma smashes the previous record of world's oldest mothers - 66-year-old Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara, according to Guinness World Records, or 72-year-old Daljinder Kaur fro Amritsar, who gave birth in 2017.
She actually went through menopause several years ago, so doctors used eggs from a donor. They were fertilised with sperm from her husband, now aged 80.
Most babies born to elderly women are conceived through IVF. The oldest woman to have given birth after conceiving naturally was reportedly a 59-year-old UK woman.
Reuters/Newshub.
