A 70-year-old woman has given birth to twins following an in vitro fertilization treatment, a hospital in Uganda has announced. Safina Namukwaya gave birth by caesarean section to a boy and a girl at a fertility center in the country's capital, Kampala, according to Digi24.
Safina Namukwaya. Photo: Twitter
The woman, who is one of the oldest in the world to give birth, told local media that she was happy and that what happened to her was a “miracle”, according to the BBC. The doctors who attended to her congratulated her and said she was more than a “medical success; it's about the strength and resilience of the human spirit”. In 2019, a 73-year-old Indian woman also gave birth to twins through IVF. “We have achieved the impossible by giving twins to the oldest mother in Africa, aged 70!”, the Women's Hospital International Fertility Center announced on Facebook. The woman gave birth to the children on Wednesday afternoon, and doctors announced that “mother and babies are fine”.
Safina Namukwaya told a Ugandan newspaper that the pregnancy was difficult, especially since her partner left her when he found out she was having twins. “Men don't like to be told you have more than one child. Since I've been hospitalized, my husband has never stopped by.” she said.
This is the woman's second birth in the last three years. In 2020, she gave birth to a baby girl. She said that she desperately wanted to have children because she had been mocked all her life for not having them. It is not known whether she used a donated egg or one that belonged to her and was harvested and frozen from her fertile period. Usually, women in menopause between 45 and 55 years. Fertility decreases during this period, but advances in medicine make it possible for them to give birth even after this period.
