A 73-year-old Indiana woman gave birth to twins in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, rekindling bitter controversy over geriatric pregnancies.
The doctor who managed the geriatric pregnancy that took place yesterday with cesarean section is Sankkayala Uma Shankar, a well-known specialist in India. Interviewed by The Post, he said that mother and girls are doing well.
Mangayamma Yaramati and her 82-year-old husband have wanted children for a lifetime (literally, I would say), and have undergone the silent treatment for years in their Indian village for those who have no children.
“We did everything, tried many doctors, but never succeeded. This is the best day of my life."
Mangayama Yaramati
“The twin birth was very gentle, there were no complications,” explains the doctor. “The patient only had some breathing difficulties with her first baby, but she was monitored until her record pregnancy.”
In vitro veritas
The twins were conceived with in vitro fertilization. Mother Yaramati was already in menopause, and so was the donor egg was fertilized with the seed of her husband before being implanted to produce birth. In these cases the parts with twins are not uncommon.
Shannon Clark, a professor of maternal and fetal medicine at the University of Texas claims that geriatric pregnancy with a record birth in Yaramati is decidedly atypical. He added, however, that it should not surprise us any more given the advances in assisted reproduction technologies and in general in longevity studies.
“Eggs deteriorate in quality and quantity over time, but the uterus is not subject to the same rules,” explains Clark.
However, Yaramati is at this time the oldest woman in the world to have given birth to children. The record three years ago belonged to a XNUMX-year-old Indian woman.
The record for a pregnancy without assisted fertilization belongs instead to a 59 year old English woman, who in 2007 she gave birth without scientific aid.
The controversy
The contrast between two visions is really strong. Many ethicists have been raising bitter controversies for years over geriatric pregnancy at increasingly advanced ages. They consider it an irresponsible act. Others, obviously including the doctors who have helped women get pregnant and have record twins, say that even a record pregnancy, even if a woman gives birth at 95, is "a fundamental right" and as such cannot be denied to people only due to age.
In a 2016 document, the Ethical Committee of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine discourages doctors a “provide donor oocytes or embryos to women over 55 years of age to produce a record twin birth, or in any case a large multiple birth, even when they do not involve particular medical problems”.
The reasons are linked to the safety and longevity of the unborn child, as well as the "need for adequate psychosocial support for the growth of the child at such an advanced age".
And what do you think? For or against? A record multi-twin birth like the Indian one in Italy has never happened. In our country the record for twin births currently stands at 62 years old. Are you ready to see the psychological threshold of 80 collapse? One day in the newspaper we will read "woman gives birth at 95".
