73-year-old woman gives birth to twins

A woman in India has given birth to twins at the age of 73. Yaramati Mangayamma is believed to be oldest person in history to give birth after she conceived through In vitro fertilization (IVF).

Managyamma and her 82-year-old husband, E. Raja Rao, got married in 1962 and the couple has thus been trying for a baby since then. Their hopes of having a child were revived after preliminary tests in 2018 showed that IVF could actually work.

The couple used an egg from a donor, fertilised with Raja Rao’s sperm and conceived in the first round of treatment.

Mangayamma gave birth to her twin girls through Caesarian section and will be placed under observation for the next 21 days. The mother will, however, not get to breastfeed the babies who will get breast milk from the milk bank.

The twin girls born to 73-year-old woman

The couple is besides themselves with joy. “It is a new lease of life to us,” 82-year-old Rao told CNN in an interview.

In a strange turn of events, Raja Rao suffered a stroke a day after the birth of his daughters and is currently being treated in hospital.

The oldest verified mother was previously Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, from Spain, who gave birth to twins at the age of 66 in 2006. She was diagnosed with cancer within a year and died in 2009.