At 65, is Indian the world's oldest mum?
A 65-year-old Indian woman has given birth to a baby boy, making her possibly the world's oldest mother, according to a report in the Times of India.
During 50 years of married life, retired school teacher Satyabhama Mahapatra, a resident of Nawagarh in the eastern state of Orissa, had longed for a child. She said she was overjoyed at the birth, by Caesarean section, of a healthy 3kg boy on Tuesday.
'At long last, happiness has come into my life,' she said.
The baby was not conceived naturally but is the combination of the sperm of Mrs Mahapatra's husband, Krishnachandra, and an egg from her 26-year-old niece.
The baby was born at a private clinic in Raipur city in the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh.
Suresh Kumar Agrawal, director of the clinic and one of the doctors who helped deliver the child, said he had notified the Guinness World Records and its Indian counterpart, the Limca Book of Records. If the press reports are verified, Mrs Mahapatra will beat the previous record holder by two years.
Hospital authorities say they tried to discourage Mrs Mahapatra and her husband from trying for a baby artificially and at their age, but they relented when the couple insisted this was their last chance at parenthood.
Mrs Mahapatra, who is able to breastfeed, was given the hormones oestrogen and progesterone and was admitted to hospital for the final three months of the pregnancy.
She said she had deliberately given ample proof of her pregnancy to villagers to avoid insinuations that she was returning home from hospital with someone else's child.
The case is all the more remarkable because the average life expectancy for Indian women is just over 63. In comparative terms, the age at which women enter menopause is slightly lower in India than in some Western countries.
In 1994, Italian Rosanna Dalla Corta gave birth at the age of 63 after using IVF to conceive.
A 63-year old woman, living in Southern California, gave birth to a daughter in November 1996. She was believed to be the oldest successful pregnancy on record.
