A 62-year-old Spanish woman is due to give birth to a baby girl in October, igniting more ethical debates about using fertility treatments on older woman,
Doctor Lina Alvarez, already has two sons, one aged 27 who is disabled and requires constant care, and a 10-year-old. According to the Spanish news service Agencia EFE, Ms Alvarez said: “I feel like a woman in her 30s. To feel better than this is impossible.
“I am very happy because I am living now my reward for so much suffering. It is a miracle.”
The mum-to-be revealed that always wanted to be a mother again, but most medical experts refused to treat her. “However, some years ago I met a gynecologist who agreed to help me if the tests were OK, and they were positive so he planted an embryo,” she said.
In regards to this pregnancy she said she felt better than when not pregnant, “by illusion, by hormones, and the happiness of being a mother, because motherhood is the greatest.”
She added that the baby was developing well and already weighing in at 2kg.
In regards to the people who say she is too old to be a mother she had this to say: “When she will be 30, I will be 90,” Lina said. “I will be a grandmother as well as a mother and so what, the fact is that my daughter will have been brought up.”
Earlier this year a Tasmanian woman, also 62, became the oldest woman in Australia to give brith – her partner is 78.
This birth sparked a vigorous debate about the ethics of having a baby via IVF at this age, with the president of the Australian Medical Association Michael Gannon labelling it “madness”.
It’s believed the Tasmanian woman had undergone several years of failed IVF procedures and was implanted with a fertilised donor embryo at a facility overseas.
