INDIAN septuagenarian Yerramatti Raja Rao has delivered a set of twins at a private hospital in Guntur city in India’s East Godavari District at the ripe old age of 74 after being married for 54 years during which she was childless.
Mrs Rao, who hails from Nelapartipadu in the East Godavari District and who delivered twin baby girls, married her husband Mangayamma on March 22, 1962. The marriage was fruitless for decades until Yerramatti read about a pregnant 55 year-old woman residing near her house who woman became pregnant through IVF.
Mangayamma drew inspiration from the neighbour and along with her husband approached Ahalya Nursing Home in Guntur city. They met IVF expert Dr Sanakkayala Umashankar who collected Mangayamma’s husband sperm and tried inserting it into via IVF , after which they monitored her closely.
She became pregnant and at birth, Dr Umashankar performed the caesarean on the 74 year-old mother, creating a new national record in India. Globally, the world record holder according to the Guinness Book of World Records was Anatolia Vertadella, a 101-year-old Italian woman who gave birth to a nine pound baby in 2016 after a controversial ovary transplant widely criticised by medical professionals because of her advanced age.
In India, Daljinder Kaur believed to be at least 70 years old, gave birth to a son named Arman, meaning wish in Hindi, on April 19, 2016. Their son was the first child Kaur and her 79-year-old husband, Mohinder Singh Gill, bore after nearly five decades of marriage.
Prior to all these recent developments, the world’s oldest mother was previously believed to be Malegwale Ramokgopa, a woman born in South Africa in 1839 who allegedly gave birth to twins three days after celebrating her 92nd anniversary on October 3, 1931. Also, Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara of Spain, gave birth by caesarean section to twin boys, Christian and Pau, aged 66 years and 358 days at the Sant Pau hospital, Barcelona on December 29 2006.
Maria died in 2009 after being diagnosed with cancer. Also, the Guinness World Records recognises the world record for the oldest mother to conceive naturally, set by British woman Dawn Brooke, who became the oldest natural mother when she gave birth to a son by caesarean section at the age of 59 years after conceiving accidentally, having managed to ovulate past her last period.
