His name is Mangayamma Yaramati and on September 5 he had two twins in a hospital in the Andhra Pradesh region, east of India. But it is not just any birth because, among other things, Yaramati is 73 years old . That is, if BBC is right , we are possibly facing the oldest woman who has been a mother.
Although Uma Sankar, the doctor who performed the caesarean section, explained that “the mother and the babies were well .” However, not even 24 hours later, Yaramati suffered a heart attack that, at the moment, is being treated.
In recent years, in India we have seen the consolidation of the tendency of elderly mothers as a way to escape the stigma of not having children . Yaramati herself explained that for years her environment had referred to her, contemptuously, as “woman without children.”
Motherhood at very advanced ages is an increasingly common phenomenon
Sitarama Rajarao, Yaramati’s 82-year-old husband, explained after the birth to the BBC that they were “incredibly happy” and that he sees no problem in being parents at such an advanced age . The same mother had explained that “we tried many times and saw numerous doctors, so this is the happiest moment of my life.”
As I say, it is not an isolated case. In 2016, for example, he transcended the case of Daljinder Kaur who was 70 years old and the truth is that it is enough to look at any relationship of elderly mothers to see the weight of women in the Indian subcontinent .However, it is true that in India, age records are not as accurate as we would like at that time. So it is not clear if we are really facing a world record. Record that, held, Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara , a Spaniard who was a mother with 66 years in 2006 and became a defender of mothers in this situation.
That is, the clash between traditional Indian culture and new technologies is creating a very curious phenomenon that returns us to a fundamental question we have asked ourselves in recent years: is there a maximum age to be a mother?
And, although national health systems have established deadlines and whenever these cases arise doctors often remember the enormous health risks of a pregnancy (and childbirth) at advanced ages, the truth is that the true age limit is yet to be found .
Yes, these pregnancies are more exposed to higher risks of spontaneous abortion, premature delivery or caesarean section, but technologies such as in vitro derived gametes (sperm and ovules derived from non-reproductive cells) have the disruptive potential that brings a new dimension to discussions about postmenopausal motherhood .
In other words, the possibilities and techniques do not stop growing and, as Daniela Cutas and Anna Smajdor of the University of Gothenburg and experts in the subject point out, the reasonable thing is that in the coming years we will find many new pregnancies of this type with the ethical, medical and social debates that have been coupled . Who has been the oldest mother in the world? It matters little because it will soon surpass it.
