A 70-year-old Ugandan woman by the name of Safina Namukaya has given birth to twins via caesarean at a fertility center in the capital, Kampala.
She described the birth of the twins, a boy and a girl, on Wednesday as a “miracle.”
BBC was informed by Dr. Edward Tamale Sali, a fertility specialist at the Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Centre (WHI&FC), that the mother underwent in-vitro fertilization (IVF) using her partner’s sperm and a donor egg.
IVF is one of several techniques that help women get pregnant. During the process, an egg is removed from a woman’s ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory.
The fertilized egg, called an embryo, is then put in a woman’s womb to grow and develop, and that’s how the 70-year-old woman got pregnant.
Both mother and babies are in good health and are still under observation at a facility in the capital, Kampala, Edward Tamale Sali explained.
Only three years ago, the septuagenarian gave birth to a daughter after being described as a “cursed woman” for not having been able to have children before.
With her first husband, who died in 1992, she had no children of her own. Ms. Namukwaya’s current partner, whom she met in 1996, did not attend the birth, much to her dismay, because he feared the responsibilities.
“Men don’t like to be told that you are carrying more than one child. Ever since I was admitted here, my man has never shown up,” she said.
This story is strange because women usually go through menopause between the ages of 45 and 55. Fertility drops around this time.