Woman in 60s 'pregnant through IVF'

[Tutter]

(from yahoo! news)

raises some interesting questions i think - like why do we have kids? for whose benefit? is she being selfish? or is she as justified as you or i?

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A controversial Italian fertility doctor has helped a British woman in her early 60s to become pregnant, it was reported.

Patricia Rashbrook, a child psychiatrist from Lewes, East Sussex, is now seven months' pregnant after being given IVF treatment by Severino Antinori, according to The Sun.

The newspaper reported she was 63 - which would make her the oldest British mother when she gives birth.

Dr Rashbrook's husband, John Farrant, refused to comment on the story but said his wife

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was younger than 63.
He told The Sun: "My wife is seven months' pregnant. We are of course both very happy and looking forward to the birth. Obviously at our age it is quite daunting.

"I would not call it a miracle baby but an assisted conception. We were aware this was going to come out and we have been preparing ourselves psychologically for the news to break."

Dr Rashbrook, who already has two children from her first marriage, flew to Rome last October for treatment, The Sun reported.

Antinori, who runs a private fertility clinic in Rome, first made headlines in 1994 by helping a post-menopausal 63-year-old woman become pregnant with donor eggs and hormones.

He has said in the past he aimed to be the first to produce a baby cloned from an adult. In 2004 he claimed that he knew of three cloned babies that had been born but refused to produce any evidence, citing legal reasons.

Previously Britain's oldest mother was hill farmer Liz Buttle, from Wales, who was 60 when she gave birth to a son called Joseph in 1997. The oldest woman in the world to give birth is thought to be Adriana Iliescu, from Romania, who had a daughter called Eliza Maria in January 2005 at the age of 66.

God my last post was sooooo badly written, anyone with half a brain can pick holes in that! I plead fatigue.

OK, am I the only one who has no polarisedl opinion on this? I know 63 yr olds who are fit and vital, and 63 yr olds who clearly aren't. Who are we to say what kind of parents they will be, and how can we tell when they're going to die? You could ask those questions of anyone who's having a child.

My main gripe with this is the way it contributes to the massive mountain of stories that make poeple tut at ivf and have opinions on it way out of proprtion to the reality for most people.

I keep thinking about my MIL who is 63. At the moment she is climbing in Peru (!) but she doesn't have the patience to look after kids 24/7.....or the stamina. And she is about as fit as a 63 year old gets, I think. She comes to visit us to look after the kids for a week at a time during the summer holidays. She is utterly wiped out by the end of the day.

I would far rather look after my own kids than someone elses' though and would therefore feel a lot less tired..and I've no doubt that a 63 year old would factor in some help!

'I'm as fit as a 20-year-old.' Do you even remember being 20?! Cuz I do, and sorry, but unless you're using coke or Ritalin, there's no comparison between a fit 20-year-old and a fit 63-year-old.

Face it: we get old. Things decline. It happens. No amount of reproductive engineering will change that.

The doctor is that one whose goal is to clone someone. The way he spouts off, he sees reproduction as a sort of maniacal experiment and comes across as a Victor Frankenstein wannabe.

Exactly MB.

PS I am wiped out at the end of the day - at 33. Climbing in Peru...the thought makes me want to weep tbh!!

Antinori is a loon - please don't anyone get the idea that this is what ivf is like! and the HFEA takes ethics very seriously.

Exactly, Pruni. Says a lot about this couple, too. Would you go to someone you thought was a loon for medical treatment? I wouldn't!

Pruni, you'd love my MIL, she is a blast.

She goes skiing evey Christmas and 4 years ago was medivaced home. She had gone down a ski jump and cracked her ribs! 3 years ago she went hiking in the Himalaers. She is amazing. But by the end of the day with my two she is knackered. I'm knackered at 43, but I still have more stamina than she does (and it isn't bacause they are mine btw, it is because I am younger than her) and a 23 year old would have more stamina than I do!

To a degree when you get older you trade stamina and energy for life experience and common sense (or at least I have). That can be a fair trade, but only, I feel up to a point. At 63 you are way beyond 'fair trade'

Oh to have the energy I had at 23.

Not that this is any of our business, but I am gruesomely interested in what the pregnancy is doing to her body. I found it exhausting and bits kept clicking unexpectedly - that must be worse at 63, surely?

My MIL is 63 too btw and off to Spitzbergen soon.

MB your mil sounds great and sounds like she has bundles of stamina. If she really wanted to I'm sure the energy she channels into climbing/skiing/hiking could be used to raise children. However, if she's been there, done that she probably enjoys the climbing/skiing/hiking more. That's her preference and her choice. My mil is 72 and has looked after quite a few of her grandchildren on a daily basis until fairly recently. Her only gripe was that she was bored and wanted to do other things now - bowling/travelling/nights out. She still has the energy but wants to use it for what she wants to do, not looking after other peoples children.

I find the whole thing disturbing and totally bizarre that a child psychologist would do this. In the papers today it said that her older children (17, 22 and 26) didn't know about this until she was showing in the pregnancy. Surely it is going to impact them in a practical way in that they might be left with a child to take care of. Irresponsible to say the least.
I've got three young children and I'm 42 and dh is 47. We would like a 4th but have had the conversation and feel we would be too old when the 4th was at teenage, university age. At what point in their decision making did this couple decide that age was not an issue. In an interview she said that the needs of the child have always been paramount. ???? Just don't get it.
They've sold their story to a tabloid for £100,000 (don't know which one) and would really love to read an interview with them to try and understand their reasoning because it is totally beyond me.

I have not read all this thread but in imo, menopause happens for a reason and when your child bearing days are over, that is it. If you conceive naturally at an older age (imo, post 50yo), then I would consider you blessed.

As for older men being able to father children, that happens naturally without medical intervention (e.g Rod Stewart, Des O'Connor and James Doohan come to mind). When a 63yo woman has to use another woman's egg, that is wrong imo.

I do feel so sorry for that child - imagine when you are 14 yo bringing your friends round to your house and they will meet your parents who are the same age as some of their great grandparents.

Interesting article \link{http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4983938.stm\here}

More women over 50 are having babies through IVF. I have no problem with naturally occuring pregnancies in the over 50s but this leaves me cold. It is as if they are fighting nature - it's all about me, me, me and what I want, now. I pity their off-spring