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In Uganda last week, a 70-year-old woman gave birth to twins, three years after her first pregnancy. An extraordinary event that we can also expect to see in France given the progress in LDCs? Doctissimo answers you.
It was said that she was a woman cursed for never being able to have children. But Safina Namukwaya was able to silence all the predictions. At 70, this Ugandan woman gave birth to twins on Wednesday, November 29, in a fertility center in the capital Kampala. Since then, media around the world have been reporting this story.
This 70-year-old mother thus benefited from in vitro fertilization (IVF), an assisted procreation technique which consists of reproducing fertilization and the first stages of embryonic development in the laboratory. Dr Edward Tamale Sali who supervised the pregnancy and delivery himself clarified that the mother had used a donor egg and her partner’s sperm for this IVF. However, given the mother’s age, the pregnancy was considered risky.
For the woman, who had her first child three years ago (already at 67), the arrival of her twins, a boy and a girl, is a “miracle”. Dr. Edward Tamale Sali, who supervised her pregnancy and delivery, is equally enthusiastic “It’s an extraordinary feat to give birth to twins for a 70-year-old mother.” Everyone as of today is said to be doing well and under observation at the facility at this time. The dad, on the other hand, has not yet appeared since the announcement, and would not be delighted according to his wife.
More structured rules in France
Should progress in PMA (medically assisted procreation) accustom us to seeing more and more pregnancies so late? Can we also expect to see 50, 60 or 70 year old mothers in France as is the case here? You just have to look at the texts to understand that no. Not because medical techniques could not, but because the rules of PMA are currently framed by a stricter bioethical law on the condition of age.
Thus, the law of August 2, 2021 authorized medically assisted procreation for all, that is to say women in a couple, but also single adult women or in a lesbian couple. From the age of 18, they can have recourse to PMA without discrimination. A woman wishing to freeze her eggs for a later parental plan and before the quality of her reproductive cells declines with age, can also do so without medical reasons. Egg retrieval can be carried out in a person (female) until their 43rd birthday.
Age remains an undisputed discriminating factor to this day: the woman intended to carry the child must be under 45 years of age; the other member of the couple (if there is a couple) must be under 60 years old. This age limit depends on the country (in Greece for example, the age limit for women is set at 50 years) but does not allow for a pregnancy as late as that announced.