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A CHINESE WOMAN had twin girls at the age of 60 following IVF treatment after her only child died, making her possibly the oldest person in the country to give birth, state media reported today.
The case is extremely unusual in China, which has long maintained a one-child policy, because of the woman’s age. Worldwide, many countries and clinics impose limits on IVF treatment which is known to become less effective with age, and amid concerns for the resulting children’s welfare.
Sheng Hailin, now 63, lost her first daughter, then in her late twenties, in an accidental gas poisoning case in 2009, the China Daily said.
“To survive and free myself of the loneliness, I decided to have another child in my old age,” she was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
A military hospital in the eastern city of Hefei agreed to give her and her husband in vitro fertilisation (IVF) therapy, the report said.
She gave birth to Zhizhi, who weighed 1.85 kilogrammes (4.1 pounds), and Huihui, 1.45 kilogrammes, on May 25, 2010 at the No. 105 Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army, said the paper.
The oldest woman to give birth anywhere, according to the Guinness Book of Records, was Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara, of Spain, who had twin boys by Caesarean in 2006 aged 66 years 358 days. She died of cancer three years later.
The China Daily did not explain why Sheng was accepted for treatment.
China has implemented its family planning law for over 30 years, sometimes brutally, restricting most parents to only one child, with exceptions including some rural families whose first child is a girl, ethnic minorities, and couples who are both only children.
An estimated one million families nationwide have lost their sole descendant since the measure took effect in the late 1970s, and another four to seven million are expected to do so in the next 20 to 30 years.
Such families face uncertain futures, with no one to help them through the frailties or medical costs of old age, and an unshakeable sense of loss in a culture that emphasises family.
The report came as China’s top legislative committee is set to formalise a wider exception to the one-child limit, to allow couples where only one is an only child to have two offspring.
Sheng, a retired medical worker, and her husband both have relatively good pensions, according to other Chinese media reports.
But Sheng has returned to work, travelling across the country to give health lectures to earn extra money to support the children, including more than 10,000 yuan ($1,600) a month to pay two baby sitters as she is no longer able to undertake physical tasks such as bathing.
“For the baby girls, I have given out all I have,” the China Daily quoted her as saying.
- © AFP 2013.
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Let’s hope she stays healthy for a good few more years so she can watch them grow up and they can have a mother, also I think the one child policy should be lifted to a two child policy, it’s much better.
If the Chinese military are involved as quoted above, and declined to give a reason for involvement, I’d say there’s a fairly good chance she won’t be watching them grow old.
Absutely ridiculous. If she lives she’ll be in her 80s when they reach 21.
I bet a lot of the people who are horrified at this article have no proplem when it comes to a “guy” like Elton John buying his children from a surrogate, and he ain’t no spring chicken.
That may have something to do with Elton John not employing the Chinese military in the process, more money than millions of Chinese – combined.
There’s no true parallel to be drawn.
The one child policy is crazy when you hear it but go to china and see for yourself, it is marginally over populated and if 50% of the population had 2 kids the population would double. It is kinda nessesary.
They’ll end up taking over the world if they want to!
We’re under populated so we’re fine of course!
@enola – so?
She’ll be in her 80s when her children are in their 20s. What’s the harm in that.
And they’ll have each other
They should be taken off her. Its a selfish act and child abuse. Simple!
“Child abuse” most ridiculous comment possible and there have been some humdingers on this show.
Seems selfish to me all about what the child may do for her, was any thought given to what she could do for the child?
Having kids for much – certainly the majority – of the world’s populations, is not about having a family to keep up with the Jones’s or any other reason we have here in Ireland by comparison. The reason they have kids in many other countries is because they don’t have old age pensions or the state in the same way we do. They depend on their kids to look after them in old age in ways we don’t understand here generally, thankfully imo.
Mother Nature has such highly refined and built-in biological controls when it comes to reproducing ourselves so why is it tinkered with in such blatant cases as this 60 year old woman? Fair enough in assisted reproduction for couples that are in the appropriate age group, but over that? What of the medical concerns? The genetic concerns? That line comes to mind – you need a licence to have a dog but none to have children.
But the babies are perfect and healthy so I think that blows your argument out of the water. May they all lead full and happy lives.
She almost certainly used a younger woman’s eggs, so concerns over egg age aren’t a problem. Still, a particularly tragic case caused by China’s one-child policy and lack of support for childless elderly.
Hope she has a few more
Fair play to her
As stated correctly in the article one child couples may have a second child.
While population limits seem terrible to us in the West, we lecture on the need for global responsibility in this area also.
have your say