Pregnant at 66

Source: Times Online UK

A BUSINESSWOMAN set to become Britain’s oldest mother at 66 has left it too late to be giving birth, according to the medical world’s leading advocate for motherhood in old age.

When she gives birth next month, Elizabeth Munro will beat the previous British record for having a baby, held by Patricia Rashbrook, who became a mother at the age of 62. It is is thought that Munro became pregnant by undergoing IVF with donor eggs, like Rashbrook before her.

The news of Munro’s pregnancy reignited medical debate on the issue of the maximum age at which it is ethical to have a child.

Yesterday the man considered one of the fiercest proponents of a woman’s right to have a baby at any age spoke out against the pregnancy. Professor Severino Antinori, who treated Rashbrook and has pioneered the IVF techniques involved in impregnating older women, said Munro, who will be 67 in July, was too old.

“I am shocked by the idea of a 66-year-old woman giving birth,” he said. “I respect the choice medically but I think anything over 63 is risky because you cannot guarantee the child will have a loving mother or family.

“It is possible to give a child to the mother up to the age of 83 but it is medically criminal to do this because the likelihood is that after a year or two the child will lose his mum and suffer from psychological problems.”

Munro, who is understood never to have given birth before, is set to have her baby by caesarean section at an NHS hospital next month. She was given her IVF treatment at a clinic in Ukraine.

Antinori, who claims to have treated 3,000 women aged from 49 to 63 with IVF, said: “Ukraine is one of the worst places; they don’t do tests there. They’re pretty adventurous, to say the least.”

Laurence Shaw, a consultant in reproductive medicine, said a mother’s life expectancy could be cut short for reasons that had nothing to do with old age: “The truth is anybody might not survive to raise their children.

“Now life expectancy is 80, so is it not reasonable for someone to go through a process of fitness screening to decide whether they should have a child?”