The human race has an unlikely new member, after a woman in India finally gave birth to her first child at an age when most people have long-since completed their diaper-changing duties. Some confusion exists over the exact age of new mother Daljinder Kaur, who claims to be 70 years old but lacks a birth certificate to prove this.
Kaur and her husband, 79-year-old Mohinder Singh Gill, have been married for 46 childless years, during which time they’ve had to put up with the taunts of certain members of a society that considers infertility to be a curse from god. However, after seeing an advert for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment two years ago, the couple decided the time was right to spice up their love life with some sexy science.
IVF involves removing an egg from a woman’s ovaries and fertilizing it in a laboratory using her partner’s sperm, before placing it back into her womb. In the U.K, official guidelines state that IVF is only suitable for women under the age of 43, which gives some indication of just how much of a long shot this was.
Unsurprisingly, therefore, Anurag Bishnoi, who runs the fertility clinic where Kaur was treated, was initially highly skeptical of the whole thing, telling AFP: “I first tried to avoid the case because she looked very frail. Then we made her undergo all the tests and once all the results were okay we went ahead.”
After two years of IVF treatment, Kaur – who the clinic says is probably 72 years old – finally gave birth to a baby boy on April 19, telling news outlets that her “life feels complete now.” Though the newborn, named Armaan, weighed just 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) at birth, the National Fertility and Test Tube center says he is now “healthy and hearty.”
“I am looking after the baby all by myself, I feel so full of energy,” says Kaur, adding that “my husband is also very caring and helps me as much as he can.”
[H/T: Discovery News]
