A 72-Year-Old Woman Has Given Birth to Her First Child

Your seventies are generally a time for afternoon golfing and early bird restaurant meals, but one couple will be spending their twilight years changing nappies and singing lullabies after welcoming their first child.  The healthy 4.4lb baby boy was born to 72-year-old Daljinder Kaur, from Amritsar in India, on April 19, 2016 after years of treatment using donor eggs at the National Fertility and Test Tube Baby Centre in Hisar, Haryana. [caption id="attachment_242604" align="alignleft" width="706"] Image: The Guardian/ Barcroft Images[/caption]   According to The Guardian, Dajinder has been married to her 79-year-old husband, new dad Mohinder Singh Gill, for 47 years. The couple had tried and failed to start a family before and believed they were cursed. Later, in the 1980s, they adopted a boy but according to reports, he moved to the United States to study and they never heard from him again. The couple say the baby, who they've named Arman, has made their life complete. In many parts of India, a man that is infertile is not given land by his parents, meaning Mohinder was forced to go to court to stake his claim in the family property. He won, using the money to pay for fertility treatment for his wife.

“God heard our prayers. My life feels complete now,” the new mum told Agence France-Presse. “I am looking after the baby all by myself. I feel so full of energy. My husband is also very caring and helps me as much as he can.”

It is not the first time the owner of the clinic, embryologist Anurag Bishnoi, has provided fertility treatment to a mum who is older than usual. In 2008, a 70-year-old patient gave birth to a baby girl and another welcomed triplets at the age of 66. Speaking to The Guardian about whether it was ethical to offer IVF to older women, Dr Bishnoi said it was a question of equality:

 “My point is if you put a restriction [on receiving IVF treatment] of 45 or 50 years, you will have to put a restriction on the males also. If they are talking about ethics, the [age] should be the same for both.”

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