Guntur / Andhra woman, 74, gives birth to twins; may be oldest ever first-time mom

A 74-year old woman gave birth to twin girls, conceived through in-vitro fertilisation, in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district on Thursday, and doctors say that she may be the oldest Indian ever to bear children. The previous oldest first-time mother was Daljinder Kaur of Punjab, who gave birth at the age of 70 in 2016.

Erramatti Mangayamma, wife of E Raja Rao, 80, from Nelaparthipadu village of Draksharamam block in East Godavari district, gave birth to the twins at Ahalya Hospital in Kothapet through Caesarian section at around 10.30 am.

“The surgery went smoothly. Both mother and the infants are healthy and have no complications whatsoever. However, the mother has been taken to intensive care unit to come out of the stress she had undergone for the last few hours,” Dr Sanakayyala Umashankar, director of the hospital, who performed the children, told reporters.

Describing it as a rare case, Umashankar said Mangayamma had no problems in conceiving and delivering the babies even at her age because she had no medical complications like diabetes and hypertension

“I don’t think she will have any major health issues in the post-delivery period. However, she cannot breast-feed the babies. But no worries. We can feed the babies with milk obtained from the milk bank,” he said.

Mangayamma and Raja Rao, an agriculturist, got married on March 22, 1962 and had been childless for the past 57 years. “She could not succeed in her attempts to conceive even after visiting several hospitals. Even after she attained menopause nearly 25 years ago, she had a strong desire to become a mother,” Umashankar said.

Last year, she came to know about a woman in her neighbourhood becoming pregnant at the age of 55 years through In vitro fertilisation( IVF). “She decided to try the method and approached us. We were surprised at her willpower. We conducted all the medical tests and found that she was medically fit for conception through IVF,” he said.

As Mangayamma had already crossed menopause, she had no chance of producing eggs. “So, we tried with an egg obtained from another donor and fertilized it with the sperm of Raja Rao through IVF method. Luckily, she conceived in the first cycle itself and she was found to be pregnant this January,” Umashankar said.

Since then, the doctors kept Mangayamma under observation in the hospital to avoid any complications. “Her health condition had been constantly monitored by cardiologists, pulmonologists, gynaecologists and nutritionist all these days. Since it is very difficult for her to have normal delivery in view of her age, we had to perform a Caesarian operation,” he said.

In 2016, Daljinder Kaur of Punjab had given birth to a boy at the age of 70. “Everyone asked me to adopt a baby, but I never wanted to. I had faith in Almighty, and knew I will bear my child one day,” Kaur had said.