World's oldest mum dies

[PuppyMonkey]

Just saw this on Sky...

news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Carmen-Bousada-Worlds-Oldest-Mother-Dies-From-Cancer-Leaving-Tw ins-Aged-Two-Behind/Article/200907315338955?lpos=WorldNewsFirstHomeArticleTeaserRegion2&lid=A RTICLE15338955CarmenBousada%2CWorldsOldestMother%2CDiesFromCancerLeavingTwinsAgedTwoBe hind

You need all the mental and physical resources you can muster to raise children. I sometimes question my own at 32, she must have been unique to feel she had such resources at 67.

Deeply sad, though .

I agree, frasermummy.

I think 50's a good age to cut it off, even with donor eggs.

These days if people are a bit fat they have it sucked out, if they feel a bit old they get poison injected into their faces. If a doctor is scrupulous enough to tell them you can't deny the ageing process, they look elsewhere. There are plenty of dodgy doctors who'll do whatever they ask.

Same with baby-making

StealthPolarBear - No, I'm not suggesting the biological parents of the children now raise them. I doubt anyone knows who they are, least of all them or the children.

This case highlights the Pandora's Box which has been opened. Whose responsibility are those children now and did she really make adequate provision for them?

I just feel that the children are the victims here whilst everyone is promoting a woman's right to have a baby at any age. It might have helped if there had been a ( responsible) father on the scene, but apparently not.

imagine donating your eggs and then finding out they'd gone to a 60 something year old woman who had lied about her age to get ivf.

As for men having children into their 60s, the difference is that men do so naturally. Women do not. So there is no double standard there - men don't have to have treatment to create children, whereas women do.

That's why the UK has the right idea and it should always be illegal for women to sell their eggs for money.

It is exploitive of women, of poorer women.

No one knows the long-term consequences of injecting all those huge doses of synthetic hormones to mature those eggs, and in counties where it's allowed for women to sell them for money they also take on young women who've never had children as clients, so no telling what the effect on their health will be.

But they are desperate, particularly in E. Europe where a lot of these post-menopausal women go.

So yeah, a double standard: with rich post-menopausal women taking advantage of poor women.

A disgrace.

Poor woman must have been desperate to put her body through that at her age.

Perhaps would have been wiser in retrospect (which obv she hasn't got the possibility of now) to adopt. (Bear in mind this is a spur of the moment post and i don't know if there is an age limit on adoption either).

i feel desperately sad for this woman. who knows what journey she went on before making the decision to get pregnant at 67 or how long she'd been trying for? i would be surprised to learn that she'd suddenly decided that she wanted children at 65.....

the debate that surrounds this issue bothers me. it seems that it's just another opportunity for us (the media, mumsnet, lynda lee potter, whoever) to express our public disapprobation of women who operate outside accepted 'normal' behaviour without necessarily a great deal of consideration of what got them there.

in particular, i'm thinking of the scientific and r and d that goes into creating this market and who really benefits from it. once the science is there, people are going to take advantage. that's human nature.

if you want something desperately enough, you will pursue it to the ends of the earth, and it seems that this is what happened to this woman - she found a way to get the thing she wanted the most. to then find out that it was exactly that action that was taking her away from her babies is heart breaking, and it sickens me that our initial reactions are to judge her for putting herself in the situation. i hope that i never find myself in her shoes - i don't know what got her there, but can imagine a number of scenarios that could lead someone to following this course of action.

finally - i agree with aaaaaaaaargh - there's very rarely the same furore about older fathers - and who's to say that older fathers conceive naturally? what about viagara, sperm washing, ivf etc etc.

i believe the difference in this attitude is because our society is busy reinforcing the message that women are responsible for bringing up children and men are still sperm donors!!

end of rant - that's been bothering me for ages!

older men have babies with a women who is not post-menopausal, that's already been pointed out.

there's no double standard!

they can physically produce offspring for longer by nature.

all this about her, and this woman and all her needs and wants.

what about the children?!

are they a side note to her needs and desires?

just a by-product of it?

what about these young women, many desperately impoverished and E. European being exploited to inject themselves with drugs which may endanger their health and put them at long-term risk to serve the desires of women who are post-menopausal to have a baby?

where's them in all this?! where's their desperation?

frasersmummy, I'm going through the menopause, I'm 27. Do I not deserve any more children?

Yunno, sometimes life has funny ways of working out.

When i was 18, imet a man who i fell deeply and completely in love with. We married soon after and were happy. Then we decided we wanted children. We tried for a long time, but found out that DH had a genetic condition which meant that we were unlikely to get pregnant naturally. We turned to IVF, and had three miscarraiges, one failed attempt and then had twin boys, one of whom died shortly after birth. We gave out child love, encouragement and everything it was pysically possible to. Three years passed, and then i found myself unbelieveably pregnant. We were delighted, if a little shocked. In time i gave birth to a daughter and my husband was the best father possible to our children. He loved them totally... he lived for them.

Then one day, just 13 weeks after our youngest child was born i came home one day and found him dead. He'd had a heart attack. He was a few days past his 69th birthday when he died. I've had people tell me that perhaps it would have been better had we not had children, but i tell you.. i wouldn't change one minute that we had as a family for the whole world. He was such a good father... his love for our children shone out of him.

Would it have been wrong of me to deny that just because he wasn't what society deemed a 'normal' aged father?

these clinics where these women are going, where they're so easily able to lie about their age, they're obviously not regulated the way clinics are here.

i'm SO sure they're giving these poor donors safe levels of drugs to mature their eggs, giving these women counselling and all the information they need to make a good decision about their health and even their lives (women can die from ovarian hyperstimulation), etc.

We all have babies for selfish reasons.

The babies will be looked after by family. There are much worse off kids in the world. Storm in a teacup - sorry.

what about these women? what about how life is panning out for them? what made them so desperate they were willing to inject themselves with a bunch of drugs for money? were they give appropriate anaesthesia for their harvesting? my mum's good friend had abortions in Romania, no birth control available to her and her husband's word was law, he used to rape her regularly, he wanted her to have an abortion she had to go. they did them there with NO anaesthetic.

i'm concerned that it's all a-okay for particular women to have babies when they are elderly but no one seems to care or wonder where they are getting these eggs, and who is running these clinics and how.

Very true, monkeytrousers.

How much money are they getting? Who is regulating the drugs they get? Who is ensuring they're getting counselling and proper medical care?

In America, young women desperate for tuition fees sell their eggs for money.

Sorry if you think it's a storm in a teacup, but I think it's wrong.

Listen to 'The Moral Maze' playback on Radio 4. There was a really good programme a couple of weeks ago abotu the eithics of elderly people having babies.

Really interesting as one minute I felt outraged at the idea of someone so crumbly giving birth and then the next totally in support of the 67 year old woman who is actively seeking a donor.

And yet in my heart I think it is incredibly wrong. My mum is 62 and a day with my dcs has her on the sofa the rest of the evening!

'The babies will be looked after by family. There are much worse off kids in the world.'

I'm sure that's such a comfort to anyone who has lost their mother at a very young age.

Yeah, like me

or my first cousin's daughter. she can't even remember her birth mother.

yes, it was one of those things. her mother dropped dead of a heart attack when she was 39 years old.

but it's like crossing the road in front of a lorry and trusting all to Providence, why court it?

and it's not addressing the question: what about these women who are desperate enough to inject themselves with tons of drugs for money?

how is it okay for an elderly, LONG past menopause woman who has the means to take advantage of a younger woman who has sold her eggs for money?

this isn't the US, i'll grant that. these women are not doing this to pay tuition at Princeton or taking money from Michael Jackson (and i definitely have my issues with that, too, because i think it's exploitive).

someone who does this in romania or bulgaria is likely very desperately poor.

expat - "older men have babies with a women who is not post-menopausal, that's already been pointed out." - leaving the woman to look after the babies! with no furore. that's my only point. there is greater disapproval of women doing the same thing that men do.

noone's arguing that this isn't very sad for the children here, but there does seem to be a certain amount of anger directed at a woman who made a decision and paid a steep price for it. i'm just saying that i feel desperately sad for her too as i imagine the horror of her realisation when she found out that she was going to leave her children. plus they will grow up knowing their mum as 'world's oldest mum' tabloid fodder. very sad all round.

I dunno, in all honesty Expat. But by the same token why do women have babies in warzones? Or in famine ravaged countries? Having babies is an essentially 'selfish' thing to do. None of us can guarentee we will be there for them. I bet this woman had life insurace, which is something I don't yet have.