Science has made it possible for women to conceive past the menopause, thanks to IVF and donor eggs. The practice of post-menopausal mothers is a controversial one, and many clinics have an upper age limit of around 50, the natural age for menopause. However, in some countries with less stringent legislation, there are clinics who will treat women at a much older age; others fail to verify the woman’s age. This has led to an increasing, if still relatively rare, number of pregnancies and births over the age of 60 (the oldest natural conception is believed to belong to a 59-year-old woman from Guernsey, although HRT may have helped her to become pregnant past the age of menopause). These are the oldest mothers to give birth, although the ages of the top 3 are unconfirmed …
10. Unnamed Austrian woman (66)
Many of the oldest mothers turn to IVF because they have no children. The unnamed Austrian woman who gave birth at the age of 66 already had two children, one conceived naturally when the mother was in her 30s and the other with IVF after the age of 60. She is believed to be the only mother who has conceived two children when over 60.
9. Valentyna Pidverbna (66)
Ukrainian woman Valentyna Pidverbna gave birth to her first child, a daughter, at the age of 66. She held the title of the world’s oldest mother for a short time. Her daughter arrived after only 3 cycles of IVF.
8. Unnamed Swiss woman (66)
An unnamed Swiss woman also gave birth at the age of 66, although this time to twin boys. This made her the oldest woman to give birth in Switzerland.
7. Elizabeth Adeney (66)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-49bNDumJfU
Britain’s oldest mother is Elizabeth Adeney, who also gave birth to her daughter at the age of 66. She remains the oldest mother to give birth in the UK, although a 55-year-old woman has since become the oldest mother of triplets.
6. Bhateri Devi Singh (66)
Indian woman Bhateri Devi Singh became a first-time mother of triplets at the age of 66, making her the oldest woman to give birth to three babies. However, one of the triplets died shortly after birth.
5. Adriana Iliescu (66)
IVF treatments often result in the conception of twins or triplets, but Romanian Adriana Iliescu’s triplet pregnancy ended with only one surviving child. One triplet died in the womb, while another was stillborn, leaving Adriana with one daughter.
4. Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara (66)
Just one week before her 67th birthday, Spanish woman Maria del Carmen Bousada gave birth to twin sons. She allegedly lied about her age to the clinic that gave her fertility treatment, telling them she was 55. Sadly, Maria’s expectation that she could live as long as her mother, who was 101 when she died, failed to happen; she died when the boys were still not 3 years old.
3. Omkari Panwar (70)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpqfdBKmcrM
Like many Indian women, Omkari Panwar felt under pressure to produce a son to inherit the family’s property. This led her to undergo IVF at the age of around 70, as she only had two daughters. The treatment led to the birth of twins, a boy and a girl. Omkari’s age has not been verified, as she does not have a birth certificate. Omkari died three years after giving birth to the twins.
2. Rajo Devi Lohan (70)
Rajo Devi Lohan gave birth to her first child at the estimated age of 70 (like Omkari, she does not have a birth certificate to prove her age). After a lifetime of childlessness and the associated stigma that it carries in India, she brought her daughter into the world. Unfortunately, she soon developed health problems, perhaps as a result of the IVF.
1. Daljinder Kaur (70/2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2bTLU2aMGU
In 2016, Daljinder Kaur seemingly became the oldest woman in the world to give birth (as with the other two 70-year-old Indian mothers, her age cannot be verified). She may even have been as old as 72 when she gave birth to her first and only child, a son. Daljinder and her 79-year-old husband had adopted a son who later went to live in the US, but until their IVF baby was born they had not been able to conceive a child.
