World's oldest mother is dying, whilst a 66 year old gives birth to IVF triplets

[Lulumaam]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1286412/Worlds-oldest-mother-Rajo-Devi-Lohan-reveals-dyin g.html

I really think it is totally unethical and immoral to allow women of this age IVF. The woman is 70, had IVF to have a child, she is now dying and unable to care for that child, she is living in poverty, poverty excacerbated by borrowing money for IVF due to the stigam of being married but childless

what happens to the child now?

Really very sad on many levels

"But she has no regrets, saying: 'I dreamed about having a child all my life. It does not matter to me that I am ill, because at least I lived long enough
to become a mother." and of course it doesn't matter to her that the child she gave birth to will grow up without a mother.

fgs the woman had been married for 54 years and only now was she bothered about the stigma of being childless?

Totally and utterly wrong on every conceiveable level.

And before the "well if this was a man" brigade jump on here, the man does not put his life at risk by having a quick shag, as opposed to the woman who has to carry and give birth to a baby thus putting her life at risk.

And I wonder if the 66 year old will feel happy that she had the chance to become a mother if her triplets die, or who will look after them if they are severely disabled because of their premature birth.

I don't care that this is what science can do, it's wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

she took out loans to fund the £2,000 ivf bill......who was daft enough to loan her money??

i think it's wrong whether it's a man or a woman. I think it's wrong for anyone this old to have children, even with a much younger partner, since they're more likely to die before the children are even teenagers.

So it's irrelevant to me that her illness is caused by the pregnancy, people this old should gracefully accept the joys that life offers, as with any other "season" in life.

I'm sure she's very sad, wasn't gonna say that publicly though, was she? She was obviously wrong, but now I feel for her. So unethical though that drs didn't warn her

The difference though between men and women is that men can still naturally impregnate a woman at 50/60/70, whereas a woman cannot, cannot even use her own eggs.

Well said Wannabe.

Too often science plays God and loses respect for natural processes. It's freakish, selfish and will cause much emotional pain.

Poor kid.

yes, because in nature mothers are expected to bring children up until they're of such age (5, 6, 7) that they can defend themselves and find their own food, before they go off to start their own family at 12 or 13.

But we don't live like that anymore. Children need parents that can provide for them (and I don't mean only financially) according to this current society's demands

What really annoyed me was the guy who married three women & none got pregnant-hello-see a pattern there?

Also, whilst I realise that money would be an issue, these couples had been married for many years.

Could they really not have tried IVF younger than 66 & 70?

And the stigma thing-well, they´d lived with it for so many years, surely it was a non-issue?

just because science can , does not mean it should

what is the point of pushing back medical boundaries, when this is the result?

i could understand if the women were 50 or so, as some women don't have the menopause until 50 or later..but in their 60s?

i wonder what drove them to do this, as has been said after so many decades of childlesness

i wonder how much they were encouraged/pushed by the clinics to do it, so they could brag about their success stories, and bring more business.?

so sad that she's dying becuase of having the baby she wanted so much. I know younger women sadly die from complications at birth but those are expected - this sounds like just a case of it being too much for her body to bear and completely natural and expected

OK I think it is not 'right' for her to have had IVF at such an age. However, the child won't resent it. The child that has been born, well, would never have lived if it weren't for their choice to have IVF. I think the child will have a difficult time amongst their peers when they are little but when considering it as an adult, will feel lucky to have ever been born.

I'm betting the poor woman had some kind of psychological problem that led her to go to such extremes to conceive at such advanced years. Rather like people that have plastic surgery they don't need, there's always some unscrupulous clinic willing to take the cash for an unnecessary procedure. She'd have been better off with counselling, no doubt.

Sometimes you see an article where they ask the question: "But where do you draw the line?" Simple answer: at menopause.

don't blame science, blame the idiot of a doctor who treated these women

Some are arguing that it is wrong to have a child after a certain age because of the likelihood of dying while the child is still young.
Would you then also say it is wrong for a woman who suffers from, say, multiple sclerosis, to have a child?
How about a man who has cancer and has his sperm frozen before starting chemo? He also stands a higher risk for his cancer to come back and kill him while his kids are young.

I do feel there is something unsettling about women who could be great-grandmothers having babies. I just worry that the argument that it is bad because they have higher chances of dying than younger people do, is a bit simple; and if it were extended to its logical conclusion, would mean that every parent-to-be would need a health check and certificate before starting TTC.

These threads always come up. There are loads of young people who are such shit parents that there kids are taken into care. They can't afford kids don't know how look after them and deliberately get pg.
What's age got to do with it??
There are shit parents who are rich and young, old and rich, young and poor, old and poor
It's unethical and immoral to have a child if you can't parent. full stop What would you do with the people who keep on having kids and those kids keep on being taken into care?
I suggest those women should be sterilised.

What catissleepy said.

Oh, and I would say that it is morally dubious for anybody with a terminal condition, be it old age or cancer or MS or anything else, to actively seek parenthood. I know that won't be popular, but children are not a right. If you cannot care for them, don't TTC. Yes accidents happen which is a different scenario, but TTC? That is selfish.

If I knew I had a disease that was likely to kill me in the next 10 years, I wouldn't choose to have a baby. If I was 60, I wouldn't choose to have a baby.

I do think that couples should have STD check ups before taking off the condom to TTC. The "health-check and certificate" as you put it though I think is a bit extreme, not the natural conclusion. Following this logic parents-to-be and parents of younf children should never leave the house in case somehting bad happens to them.Anyone could be killed in a car accident tomorrow.

You deal with what you're dealt. However you're statistically far more likely to be dealt ill health and death in your 70s than in your 30s.

crumpette I disagree.

I am sure the child will be glad that they are alive when they grow up. But equally I am also sure that a child is capable of feeling some resentment towards the fact that their parent chose to conceive at a time when they knew they would not be able to be around to see them grow up.

Meita I think that someone suffering from a terminal illness where they know they are going to die should think twice before having children yes. But cancer is not always a terminal illness, and the success rate for cancer treatment is now higher than the failure rate so it is not a fair comparison.

The 30 year old undergoing cancer treatment might die, but equally he/she might live for another 40/50 years. But the 66 year old is going to die. Probably within the next 15/20 years. And before she dies she will probably become old and frail and incapasitated, maybe she'll develop dementia even and her three possibly disabled children (due to the fact they are so premature) will have to witness that.

Any one of us can die at any age.

For some of us, we never know when that might be. But for others there is more certainty that death is not far.

For those who think it's acceptable, would you be happy to donate your eggs so that a 66 year old might have a child only to die and leave it motherless in the next 10/15 years?

As I said though, what pisses me of about these two stories is not the decision of the parents, but the lack of ethics of the drs who found some poor uneducated couples and simply "forgot" to inform them of the dangers

agree with wannabe

yes, kittywise, lots of young parents are appalling parents, parents can and do die young, women can die in childbirth.. and we have safeguards to hopefully ensure children born into unsafe environments are protected.

actively seeking to concieve at an age a decade past menopause is a different story

i agree and have said i think morally and ethically it is dubious , in fact, wrong, for doctors to do this..

what drives a woman after 5 decades of childless marriage, to take a loan and go for IVF, with no understanding of the risks a pregnancy and delivery at her advanced age could be?

i do wonder how much sway the clinic has..

who is picking up the pieces?

DH and I still have living grandparents who range in age from mid 70s to 90. While some are still very 'young' for their age none of them could look after a child for any length of time. DH's nana for an hour or two maybe.

can i just repeat this because I don't think it's made obvious.

She is dying because she gave birth, as a direct consequence. Not from complications or conditions arising from prgnancy or labour, but simply because she was too frail to give birth. I find that shocking.

quite, stealth.

Clearly the body is designed to go through menopause at a certain time because there comes a point where the human body is not designed to be able to go through the process of childbirth.

I agree with gobsmacked. These were uneducated women who were probably not aware of all the risks. I think the doctors were very wrong to treat them and it is them that should bear the most responsibility.
However there is the question that they waited a long time before seeking ivf. Why did they not get the treatment 20 years previously?