‘I’m not too old to be a first-time mum’ says Indian woman, 70

Daljinder Kaur, who has been married to her 79-year-old husband for 46 years, said they had almost lost hope of ever having a child and had faced ridicule in a country where infertility is sometimes seen as a curse.

Daljinder Kaur, 70, holds her newborn baby with her 79-year-old husband Mohinder Singh Gill, at The National Fertility Centre in Hisar, Haryana. Photo: National Fertility Centre / AFP Photo

NEW DELHI // An Indian woman who gave birth at the age of 70 said Tuesday she was not too old to become a first-time mother, adding that her life was now complete.

Daljinder Kaur gave birth last month to a boy following two years of IVF treatment at a fertility clinic in the northern state of Haryana.

Mrs Kaur, who has been married to her 79-year-old husband for 46 years, said they had almost lost hope of ever having a child and had faced ridicule in a country where infertility is sometimes seen as a curse.

“God heard our prayers. My life feels complete now. 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,” Mrs Kaur told AFP from the northern city of Amritsar.

“When we saw the (IVF) advert, we thought we should also give it a try as I badly wanted to have a baby of my own,” she said.

Mrs Kaur put her age at about 70, a common scenario in India where many people don’t have birth certificates, while the clinic said in a statement that she was 72.

The baby was conceived using the couple’s own egg and sperm and was now “healthy and hearty” after weighing just two kilograms at birth on April 19, the National Fertility and Test Tube centre said.

Mrs Kaur’s husband, Mohinder Singh Gill, who owns a farm outside Amritsar, said he was unfazed about their age, saying God would watch over their child whom they named Armaan.

“People say what will happen to the child once we die. But I have full faith in God. God is omnipotent and omnipresent, he will take care of everything,” he said.

Anurag Bishnoi, who runs the fertility clinic, said he was initially sceptical about going ahead with in vitro fertilisation (IVF), but tests showed Mrs Kaur was able to carry the unborn baby.

“I first tried to avoid the case because she looked very frail. Then we made her undergo all the tests and once all the results were OK we went ahead,” Dr Bishnoi said.

The case is not the first in India, with a 72-year-old woman from Uttar Pradesh state reportedly giving birth to twins in 2008, also through IVF.

* Agence France-Presse