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

Madness!

but as is said time and time again on these threads, men can father children in later life - they don't need assistance to do so. Women cannot conceive naturally past menopause. In fact a woman having a child at age 70 will not be having her own biological child - she needs donated eggs to do so.

I wouldn't think it was appropriate for a 70 year old man to "father" a child through doner sperm either.

FellatioNelson

"That's the crux of it. No-one would deny an infertile and childless couple the chance to have a child UP TO A POINT, but there comes a point when it is no longer a good idea to facilitate it."

Ok but where do you draw that line?

What about if the person seeking fertility treatment has a terminal illness?

What about if they are disabled?

What about if they are poor?

What about if they are single?

etc.

I think we have to say either: if you can't have a child naturally you shouldn't have one at all. Or: anyone should be eligible for fertility treatment, if it's got a good enough chance of working.

Anything in between involves an examination of whether someone is "good enough" to get help to be a parent. There are many people who for various reasons might not be seen as "good enough". I don't think we can say that age is the only reason to stop someone having IVF.

I think if it is past the woman's natural menopause (obviously I'm not including women who've had the menopause extremely early, hence their infertility)then that should be it, I'm afraid. Sad, but for the best.

Obviously all the other factors you mentioned are a bit different, because if they could have a baby naturally in any of those scenarios then they would have, and whether they should is not the issue. It is not about making moral/social judgements about people's choices, but about knowing when medical intervention is sometimes not appropriate/for the best.

"Ok but where do you draw that line?

What about if the person seeking fertility treatment has a terminal illness?

What about if they are disabled?

What about if they are poor?

What about if they are single?

etc."

You draw the line at natural menopause.

And it should have nothing to do with moral ability to be a parent, but it should have to do with the risks to the mother's own life. And on that basis people in the categories mentioned above would be turned down:

People are turned down on the basis they are overweight/in poor health meaning that a pregnancy would place additional stress on their body/IVF cycle would be less likely to prove successful.

I would imagine people with disabilities could be turned down on the same basis i.e. if the disability was such that pregnancy would cause additional risk to the mother.

The uterus is good for gestation beyond menopause and up until death! It's the eggs (which start to fail around 38) that are the problem. So, by this estimation, women shouldn't be having babies through IVF post 40 as the rates of success are very low, single figure percentages, and couples usually require donor eggs post female being 44 years old.

So medical science does have its uses as no-one would suggest that 44 is elderly. The oldest woman to have a baby naturally is 56 or 58. So perhaps the cut off point should be 60. However its a grey area. Many young women have children and then contact a disease and die. Some have had a disease, get better, have children, then get ill again and die. Given genetic advances, it could be in years to come that as a race, we'll be able to detect future possible diseases. Will women and men who could possiby get a disease be then 'disqualified' from having children?

It's a lot to think about. We must however get over the bigger issue. That women age and get wrinkles. This is what people think is unpleasant. Men on the other hand can get grey, go bald and get jowly and wrinkly. No one bats an eyelid when they walk down the street, pushing a stroller with their young offspring. Remember they can only do this because their partners are fertile as well and usually much younger.

I agree that the natural menopause should be the "cut off" point.

In the case of this woman, her husband´s sperm couldn´t "penetrate the egg".

Wonder if that was his age causing that.

"I agree that the natural menopause should be the "cut off" point." - why?

And what age is that?

Nature would prefer me to die fom an automimmune condition but I'm buggered if I'm going to refuse modern medicine to go against nature!

I think if a woman has been through menopause naturally-& not prematurely, then she should accept that her childbearing days are behind her.

Kewcumber there's a world of difference between using medicine to defy nature and keep someone from a premature death, or curing disease, and using science/medicine to manipulate (to an unnecessarily extreme degree) the natural order of things just to satisfy man's ever-increasing whims and cultural/societal expectations.

Also agree with blaming the idiot doctor/clinic rather than science. The mothers clearly have some responsibility too, but the clinic pisses me off more.

Using menopause as 'cut-off' is not simple, btw - there is, sadly, such a thing as POF (premature ovarian failure) and 'natural' menopause age can vary hugely.

My friend was menopausal at 26. I had my youngest at 46 - some of the arguments here would mean neither of us should have had our children. But I absolutely agree its nuts for a 66 year old to be helped to become pregnant - dangerous for her, unethical in relation to the children. Just very very grey as to where to draw lines

But....what is 'prematurely', re menopause?

I think with the NHS there should arrive at a cut-off point factoring in the average age of menopause for normal healthy women, combined with the number of years that woman has been recognised by her GP as having had fertility issues. Obviously it can sometimes take ages to get to the bottom of what is wrong, and time must be given to try less extreme solutions. For others they may consciously have made a decision to put off a family until after 40, and then go straight to the Doctor and ask for IVF on the NHS because they are impatient after 6 months of trying. The issue with them may not be one of true infertility, just of pushing their luck with a dwindling egg supply! I'm not saying they don't deserve to be helped, but that maybe the NHS is appropriate in those situations.

With private cases it's harder to say what the limits are, but personally I don't think it is ethical over 50. The amount of women who conceive naturally and go onto have healthy live births over the age of 50 is tiny, tiny, tiny.

I meant the NHS is inappropriate, sorry.

FellatioNelson:

The amount of women who conceive naturally above the age of 45 is tiny, tiny, tiny. It has little to do with menopause and all to do with the quality of the eggs, which start to decline as a woman reaches her late 30s. This decline is not gentle btw, it's quite startling and rapid (hence the heartache of leaving it too late). A woman may have lots of eggs in her 44 year old ovaries but they will be of poor quality. Above 44, regarding say IVF treatment, the result if using her eggs, is nearly always failure (99%). In general of course, there are some lucky, but rare, women who have excellent quality eggs right up until menopause!

"maybe the NHS is appropriate in those situations" - actually NHS is impossible in those situations - NICE guidelines (in England) are:

• women aged 23 - 39
• those who have an identifiable cause of infertility such as an absence of sperm, or blocked fallopian tubes
• those who have had more than three years of fertility problems.

So scenario of 45 yr old women who have been trying for 6 months isn;t the reality.

This thread isn't about what is possible in teh UK - it wouldn't be possible at a licenced clinic either privately or publically funded. Its about whetehr it is right for society to decide whether a specific individual mother should be allowed to pay for private IVF is any circumstance she chooses.

There is a cultural context to this, i understand that in the 70y old ladies case only recently did she discover about donor egg IVF treatment and apparently there is a huge cultural stigma to being infetile in India such that people shun you and see you as bad luck. Also I understand the husband has 2 wives (from the documentary I saw last year) and they always knew the younger wife would parent too
i am not saying i agree with it, i just realise the situation in India is different to if it were a western woman

Yes celticfairy I agree with you there. When I said 'menopause' I think what I really meant was the average age past which most normal healthy fertile women would be expected to conceive and carry full-term to a healthy conclusion.

And as Kewcumber has just pointed out, that is indeed the situation!

What's interesting here is how unethical some doctors are when they are not governed by the constraints that we take for granted in the UK and western Europe. To them, it seems, it's just a paid job, like building, and ethics don't come into it.

I think the younger wife is 62-and with high blood pressure, which is why she didn´t undergo the IVF.

I´m sure the situation is different in India.
But tbh, I wonder how the fact that she has had "help" is viewed?

look at the picture. the child looks healthy, happy and cared for. the mother looks happy to.
HOW can anyone deny such happiness? normally i am all for the argument about menopause being there for a reason, but, just looking at these women, and reading their stories makes me wonder about how anyone can say its wrong for them to have children. especially when you take into account the cultural context.

I find it interesting that my mum was considered very old at 37 to be having her sixth child - was told constantly she was old. And yet one generation on 34 seems to be the average age to have your first. I feel like a young mum as i am only 28 and my boy is 9months and i always seemed to be one of the youngest at antenatal groups and in hospital.

I blinked an eye when i heard about Des O'Connor - in fact i was a little grossed out by it.

Anyway on this situtation I feel sicken that this doctor/clinic is seeing fit to experiment on desperate women (and get money off them to do so).

I think in India (I'm open for correction here) the extended family take much MUCH more of a part in rasiing a child so in that respect it would have been such a concern to the woman about the child having her mother around for a long time. It's a cultural difference that I think we find hard to get our heads around

Though one think that i simply can't get my head around if that if a man had several wives and none of them have children how can they glaringly obvious not been seen and the women tormented and outcast because of their failure to have a child with an infertile man. I just cannot see how (even with cultural differences) 2+2 doesn't make 4

buddleja, even when it makes four, people can still be unreasonable. think in law situations, they are the same whereever in the world you are from

as for the doctors, they arent experimenting on these women. they are enabling them to have beautiful children.

I have a friend, born (naturally) of a woman presumed to be post-menopausal. Both her parents died when she was a young adult.

Her feeling is she is grateful for being given life.

The small child in India may not have parents but will potentially have a whole extended family, even a whole village to raise her. Better that than no life whatsoever.