Twins Orphaned after Worlds Oldest Mum Dies

Shar

Source Sky News

A Spanish woman who gave birth to twins when she was 67 has died, two-and-a-half years after becoming the world's oldest mother.

Carmen Bousada, who lied about her age to receive donor eggs and sperm in the US, died at 69 after suffering from cancer - leaving her two young boys parentless.

Her brother told Spanish newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya her illness was "very hard, she was in a really bad state recently".

It was not clear who would now raise Ms Bousada's sons, Cristian and Pau.

In an interview with Spanish television in December 2007, shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer, she said family members could care for them if she died.

"I have a nephew, and their godfather is very good with the children. They are not going to be alone," she said at the time.

Ms Bousada gave birth on December 26, 2006, at a hospital in Barcelona after being artificially inseminated at a fertility clinic in Los Angeles.

She later admitted she had filled out forms claiming she was 55, in order to get around the centre's age limit for single women.

She had hormone therapy to 'rejuvenate' her uterus as she had gone through the menopause 18 years earlier.

The arrival of her healthy babies made her the oldest woman known to have given birth.

Her death is likely to reignite controversy over older women undergoing fertility treatment to become mothers.

In May the issue was debated again in Britain after businesswoman Elizabeth Adeney, who had IVF treatment in Ukraine, gave birth to a baby boy Jolyon at the age of 66.

An Indian woman, Omkari Panwar, claimed to be 70 years old when she gave birth to twins last year, but she has no birth certificate to prove her age.

Saftlad · Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 3:22 pm Post subject:

Why do these selfish women insist on having children when they know that other people will have to take care of them when they are orphaned at an early age through no fault of their own. And the doctors that help them become pregnant in the first place need shooting. It all makes my blood boil

Dolly Dimple · Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 7:16 pm Post subject:

There's a program on channel4 about this subject - i think its on tomorrow night.....

FlakeySugarButt · Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 1:07 pm Post subject:

This sort of thing makes me so cross. Something has to be done to ensure this kind of thing does not continue. There is biological reason why women go through the menopause. If we were meant to have children and give birth for our entire lives then we would. Nature did not intend it to be that way.