The 11 Oldest People In The World To Give Birth (2023)

Would you be comfortable with your mother being 70 years old on your first day of school? Almost every woman on this list has sparked public debates on the ethics of their decisions. Many of these women were desperate to have children. A few others, had more complicated reasons, such as carrying on the family lineage. Every one of them defended themselves until the end, maintaining that they were not selfish people.

But to sum it all up, clinics can now transfer sperm, eggs, and embryos into pre-selected bodies, thus stimulating pregnancy for qualifying applicants. In Vitro Fertilization combines the latter and hormonal drug therapy, in which a woman injects herself with hormones several times a day.

The likelihood of a woman conceiving a healthy baby after the age of 42 is low. A woman’s eggs lower in quality after her 40th birthday. And most responsible private fertility clinics will not treat woman over the age of 50. So a lot of the women on this list became pregnant from straight up dishonesty and law-breaking.

Pregnancy complications increase as the mother’s age increases. Risks include diabetes and seizures, red blood cell breakdown, low blood platelet count, ompaired liver, fluid in the lungs, cancer, and visual disturbances. Also miscarriages, stillbirths, premature births, and low birth weights. Plus, the children have a greater chance of being an orphan before they reach high school.

11 Lauren Cohen - 58 Year Old Gives Birth To Twins

She was already the mother of a 26-year-old daughter, Renee. A working professional lawyer - and married. But in December 2004, Lauren Cohen gave birth to a daughter, Raquel. At the time, she was 58 years old. But here’s the kicker: she gave birth to twins, Gregory and Giselle, again in May 2006!

She used the embryos from her first IVF treatment in 2004. Instead of giving them away or destroying them, she and her husband decided to have more kids. At the time of the twin’s birth, Lauren was one month away from being 60 years old!

The reason she decided to have kids at 60 years old? Because her husband, Frank Garcia, was 20 years her junior. She wanted him to have a family. “I knew it would make him happy [...] I didn’t want him to be alone,” she said. Addressing what would happen if she died first.

Lauren takes up to one hundred pills a day. She also takes yoga, pilates, and fitness classes. Her eldest daughter, Renee, lives in disgust. Because of her mother's decision, she has vowed never to set foot in Lauren’s home again.

10 Jeanine Salomone - 62-Year-Old Uses Brother's Sperm

Jeanine’s story was controversial and yielded a French investigation. Jeanine gave birth to a baby boy in 2001 at the age of 62. But the two eggs donated to Jeanine came from the sperm of her brother, Robert. Although this is weird, Jeanine defended herself. She wished to continue her genetic line by passing on her brother’s genes.

Dr. Sahakian, Jeanine's IVF doctor, said he did not know the situation. He thought they were a married couple and admitted to making limited checks on the personal lives of his patients.

The children came into a stressful situation. A 1993 police report stated members of this family “ferociously hate each other.” And the two siblings have fought over a two million dollar family inheritance for a long time. The brother, Robert, had even shot himself in the face years back as a result of depression.

9 Annegret Raunigk - Oldest To Give Birth To Quadruplets

Annegret Raunigk is the oldest woman to ever deliver quadruplets. The 65-year-old gave birth to quadruplets earlier this year. She had three boys and one girl.

The babies were born three months premature and delivered by C-section. All weighed between 1 lb 7 oz and 2 lbs 2 oz.

Before she gave birth, Raunigk was already a mother of 13 children ages 9 to 40 years old. She was also the grandmother of seven grandchildren, aged 15 to 26 years old.

She will be 70 years old by the time her youngest children reach primary school. “I have always been a person who says live and let live […] I am just hoping to stay healthy and fit.” She married only once. And speaking of men, she says “my experience with men was that I never found the right one.”

8 Elizabeth Adeney - 66-Year-Old Businesswoman

If you were 66 years old and working a five-day work week, would you consider it the perfect time to have a kid? Elizabeth Adeney did. She was a wealthy businesswoman and in perfect health at the time of her pregnancy. Friends described her as “bright” and “single-minded.” At age 66, she gave birth to a baby boy, Jolyon on May 28, 2009.

A friend said, “I’m amazed how she keeps going.” Conceived through IVF treatment in a controversial Ukrainian clinic. She completed treatment abroad. Her 71-year-old husband refused for 10 years to lend himself for assisted maternity. His refusal, combined with the birth of Jolyon, caused their later divorce.

A room in her $910,000 house has transformed. Now it is a nursery. A live-in nanny helps her cope with raising a child and working. Elizabeth says, “It’s not physical age that is important - it’s how I feel inside. Some days I feel 39. Others, I feel 56.”

7 Dawn Brooke - Oldest To Conceive Naturally

Dawn Brooke was the oldest mother to conceive naturally without the aid of IVF treatment. This broke the world record by two years. She was 59 years old. She mistook her pregnancy symptoms for cancer.

Mrs. Brooke’s son, 41, said “when they told us, we all gave Ray [the father] a round of applause. He and mum are both extremely healthy and active and having a youngster to bring up is now a large part of that.”

“The boy is extremely creative and mathematical […] the lad’s got a phenomenal IQ. I think he’ll do extremely well in later life.” The whole family has genes which make them young in age, even as they grow. Brooke’s adult children look about 5 to 10 years younger than they are. And this could be the cause of her success in conceiving a child.

Brooke says, “it was a very easy pregnancy. I wasn’t sick and I didn’t have any mad cravings.”

6 Ann Stolper - Her Daughter's Surrogate At 58

How would you like it if you were your grandmother's biological child? Ann Stolper gave birth to her own twin granddaughters, Itai and Maya, on December 1, 2006, at the age of 58! How is this possible? This was possible because she was the surrogate mother for her daughter Caryn.

Caryn had a hysterectomy at the age of 25 after her cancer diagnosis. And she was not able to have a child in the traditional way. But before her radiation treatment, doctors harvested Caryn’s eggs for later use. She made a full recovery. From there, she began looking for options on how she could have a child with her husband Ayal.

Apparently, her mother seemed like the perfect candidate. Ann Stolper, the grandmother, was healthy and completely available. She offered to carry the fertilized eggs to term. Eight months went by without a hitch. ButAnn ended up giving birth to Caryn’s two baby girls six weeks premature.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise. Babies are often born early from older mothers. No news on how the children are doing. But if they are like the other children on this list, they are probably doing well.

5 Janise Wulf - Age 62

She had 20 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. On February 19, 2006, Janise Wulf gave birth to a baby boy, Adam, at the age of 62. Janise’s doctor agreed to go through with the IVF treatment because Janise was in good health.

Janise and Scott (the third husband) didn’t want their only son, Ian, to grow up an only child. Ian, born in 2002, was three years younger than Adam. Ian was also conceived through IVF treatment.

Janise’s oldest child, from a previous marriage, was 40 years old when Adam was born. The youngest was 24 years old. Adam was Janise’s 12th child.

“Age is a number. You’re as old as you feel. Every time you revolutionize something or you do something different, there’s going to be naysayers,” said Janise. The only concern from doctors was her health, of which everyone agreed would not be an issue after consulting several medical specialists.

4 Sandra Lennon - Second Oldest Mother In Britain

Sandra Lennon was the mother of two and grandmother of four. In October 2004, Sandra gave birth to a baby boy, Alex, at the age of 59. It was her second child born of IVF treatment. The first, Joshua, was born in 2003.

In 2003, she became "the second oldest mother ever in Britain." Sandra’s grandchildren are all older than both Alex and Joshua. And the birth of the newborns sent shock waves within the family. Her adult child, Lisa, called her “selfish.”

“I don’t think my family will mind,” says Sandra. But Lisa says, “It’s absolutely ridiculous. She presents this nice image - but it is a lie. None of what she says is true.” In fact, Sandra and her husband, Michael, married in name only, having never lived together. The two were reportedly on the verge of divorce after Alex’s birth. The father, Michael, only reportedly only visits the babies on the weekends.

Her 32-year-old son was also not on speaking terms with his mother. “None of us wants this. It was bad enough the first time round,” his wife said.

3 Adriana Iliescu - Age 66

Adriana Iliescu was halfway through her 66th year when she gave premature birth in 2005 to a 3 poundbaby girl. She went through IVF treatment for nine years before giving birth. Everyone thought she would give birth to triplets. But one of hers died before giving birth. And another passed away from stillbirth.

She always wanted children of her own, but could not conceive naturally. When IVF treatment came along, she jumped right on the bandwagon.

“If I live as long as my parents did, Eliza will be 20 by the time I pass away,” she says. Religious groups say she is “grotesque,” “horrifying,” and “the work of the devil.”

The doctor who performed the IVF treatment justified it all saying Adriana is in good health. Eliza, the baby girl, is doing well. In school, they say she is well advanced for her age. Adriana, university professor and author of children’s books, says “I feel like I’m 27.”

2 Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara -Dies 2 Years After Giving Birth

Maria became the oldest mother to give birth on December 29, 2006, seven days away from her 67th birthday. And she gave birth to twins. Her mother had reached the age of 101. So she was optimistic, expecting to have a good chance at raising her two children. And even seeing her grandchildren.

She lied to doctors about her age to receive IVF treatments, telling them she was 55. But 55 is still a questionable age. Most clinics won’t treat woman over 50. From there she sold her house to pay for IVF, which cost a total of $59,000.

Critics described her decision as “selfish, unnatural and wrong. Her children innocent victims…” Her brothers criticized her. But Maria Bousada defended herself, saying “everyone has to have children at the right time for them. This was the right time for me.”

She passed away July 11, 2009, when her sons were 2 years old, from ovarian cancer. But even after her cancer diagnosis, she maintained that she did not regret her decision.

1 Omkari Panwar - Gives Birth To Two Babies At 70

Omkari Panwar gave birth to two children, Christian and Pau, at the age of 70 on June 27, 2008. She also lied about her age to receive the IVF treatment. The twins were born a month premature and weighed only 2 lbs each. Doctors delivered them by emergency C-section. But both children were healthy at the time of birth.

Omkari and her husband, Charam, both seemed completely unfazed. At the idea of Mrs. Panwar being the oldest mother in the world to give birth, they were completely unaware. The Panwars already had two adult daughters, and five grandchildren. They needed a son to act as an heir for the family’s holdings. To pay for IVF, Charam sold his cattle, mortgaged his land, spent his life savings, and took out a credit loan. “The treatment cost me a fortune, but the birth of a son makes it all worthwhile. I can die a happy and a proud father.”

Sources:www.dailymail.co.uk;www.dailymail.co.uk;abcnews.go.com;en.wikipedia.org