Singapore reports a 55-year-old woman as its oldest mother to give birth after welcoming a newborn baby in 2022.
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A father and a mother look at their newborn son during the Covid-19 pandemic, novel coronavirus at the maternity of the Diaconesses hospital in Paris, on November 17, 2020.
SG's Oldest Mother to Give Birth
Since the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) began publishing the annual report on the registration of births and deaths in 1989, The Straits Times reported a mother at the age of 55 becomes the third woman in that age group or older to give birth and register the birth of a baby. Out of 35,000 women who gave birth in 2022, just one mother was aged 55 or older.
According to a spokesperson from ICA, the mother gave birth to a boy. This phenomenon is observed as an uncommon yet increasing occurrence, where a small but expanding group of women aged 50 and above are embracing motherhood, challenging the boundaries and conventions associated with it.
Between 1989 and 2009, spanning a period of 21 years, a total of seven babies were born to six women aged 50 and older, with one woman even giving birth to twins. Years after this timeline, 33 of women in this age group gave birth to 41 babies. While for 2020 to 2022, nine women from the same bracket gave birth to nine babies.
Thoughts from Medical Experts
Dr. Liu Shuling, director of the KKIVF Center at the KK Women's and Children's Hospital, stated that as the woman ages every year, the number and quality of a woman's eggs decline. She added that most women reach menopausal stage when they turn 50, making it impossible for them to conceive a child naturally.
Meanwhile, Monash IVF Singapore Medical Director Dr. Suresh Nair has treated four patients in their 50s who have successfully given birth, with the eldest among them being 52 years old. He added that some of these women underwent virto fertilization (IVF) using donor eggs. Yale reported that this makes the babies not biologically related but share genetic ties with the egg donor or husbands.
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Dr. Nair explains his happiness with his patients' decisions as their determination to have children is so powerful, to the point that they would go through all the hurdles and risks. One factor in the increasing number of such late-in-life mothers is the curiosity for women to become mothers in this age bracket with the help of reproductive technology.
Risks, Factors of Late Pregnancy
While this may be interesting to some, Stanford Medicine reported that pregnancy at such an age will be fraught with significant risks, putting older women through several medical checks to ensure they are fit for pregnancy at their age.
National University's head of the division of maternal-fetal medicine Hospital and Associate Professor Su Lin Lin said that older women face an increased likelihood of experiencing miscarriages during the initial trimester of pregnancy. Additionally, there is a heightened risk of chromosomal abnormalities and various other associated risks affecting their babies.
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