23 Jul 2011
By Theresa Tan
MANY women become grandmothers in their 50s.
But last year, a university graduate here in her early 50s gave birth, becoming Singapore's oldest mum last year – and perhaps the oldest here ever.
The official figures indicate she is aged between 50 and 54.
Women who give birth in their 50s are very rare, with fewer than 10 of them in the past two decades, going by the annual report on the registration of births and deaths.
While a woman's fertility almost "grinds to a halt" by the time she hits 45, it is still possible – though "extremely rare" – for a woman in her 50s to conceive naturally, said Dr Christopher Chen, director of Gleneagles IVF Centre.
His oldest patient was a woman who gave birth to her first child, a son, at 50. The housewife, who had been trying for a child for almost 20 years, conceived naturally. "It was a fluke shot," he said.
Dr Yong Tze Tein, a senior consultant at the Singapore General Hospital department of obstetrics and gynaecology, knows of a woman here who conceived her third child naturally in her early 50s. She was "very embarrassed" to fall pregnant at her age, Dr Yong added. Her two older children were already in their 20s.
Doctors say one possibility is that Singapore's candidate for oldest mum went to a fertility centre overseas, such as in Malaysia or Thailand, for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment. She probably also used a donor's eggs as the quality of her eggs would be far from ideal at her age.
In Singapore, women aged 45 and older cannot receive assisted reproduction treatments such as IVF. The reason for this, according to a Health Ministry spokesman, is that medical evidence has shown that the chances of conception using such assisted measures are significantly lower for older women.
A woman under 35 who uses IVF has a 48 per cent chance of getting pregnant. This falls to 31 per cent from age 35 to 39 and plunges to only 14 per cent above 40, said Dr Loh Seong Feei, head of the KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) department of reproductive medicine.
The world's oldest mother who conceived naturally is believed to be a British woman who gave birth when she was 59.
Mrs Dawn Brooke delivered her third child – a son – in 1997, and the unplanned pregnancy came as "a shock". Her husband was five years her senior and she had two older children in their 20s from a previous marriage when her youngest was born.
Over in India, a 70-year-old farmer's wife took the honours as the world's oldest IVF mum.
Mrs Omkari Panwar was so determined to have a son that her 77-year-old husband sold his buffalos, mortgaged his land, cleaned out his life savings and took out a credit card loan to pay for IVF treatment.
It paid off when Mrs Panwar gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl – in 2008. They already have two adult daughters and five grandchildren.
Her husband, Mr Charan Singh Panwar, said: "At last we have a son and an heir. We prayed to God, went to saints and visited religious places to pray for an heir. The treatment cost me a fortune but the birth of a son makes it all worthwhile. I can die a happy man and a proud father."
theresat@sph.com.sg
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