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A 70-year-old woman in Uganda had a pair of twins after undergoing fertility treatment, becoming one of the world's oldest mothers.
Safina Namukwaya gave birth to a boy and a girl on Nov 29 via caesarean at a fertility centre in the capital, Kampala.
The Women's Hospital International and Fertility Centre believes Namukwaya is Africa's oldest mother, adding in a Facebook post that this was not just about medical success, but it is about the "strength and resilience of the human spirit".
"She's healthy. She's talking. She's walking around if they (medical staff) tell her to walk around the hospital," Associated Press quoted the hospital spokesman Arthur Matsiko as saying.
Namukwaya became pregnant after undergoing in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) using a donor egg and her partner's sperm.
The babies were born premature at 31 weeks and weigh more than 1.3kg.
They were placed in incubators, reported the BBC, quoting the hospital's fertility specialist, Dr Edward Tamale Sali, who added they are currently in a "stable" condition.
Namukwaya also has a three-year-old daughter back at her rural village in the east African nation, who was also conceived at the same hospital via IVF.
She said she had always wanted children after being mocked by others over her childless stage during her younger days.
"I looked after people's children and saw them grow up and leave me alone. I wondered who would take care of me when I grow old," she told Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper.
For now, Namukwaya will have to raise her children on her own, as her partner abandoned her after finding out she was carrying twins.
"Men don't like to be told that you are carrying more than one child. Ever since I was admitted here (the hospital), my man has never showed up," she said.
Still, she is not too worried as people from her village have expressed their willingness to pitch in.
"Some households will be helping me with washing and the babies because of my advanced age," Namukwaya said.
Typically, women go through menopause at ages 45 to 55, which means they are no longer able to bear children naturally. But advances in medical sciences have made it possible for older women to give birth.
A Spanish woman, Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, gained worldwide attention when she became the world's oldest mother at the age of 66 in December 2006 after undergoing IVF treatment.
She died of cancer in July 2009 when her twin sons were two and a half years old, and the children are now under the care of her nephew and his wife.
In 2019, Erramatti Mangayamma, then a 73-year-old farmer from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, gave birth to twin girls.
In Singapore, a 55-year-old woman gave birth to a baby in 2022, making her only the third woman aged 55 and above to have given birth and registered the birth of a baby since the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority started publishing the annual report on registration of births and deaths in 1989.
70岁老妇试管产下双胞胎 被称为非洲最年长妈妈
乌干达一名70岁的妇女在接受生育治疗后生下了一对双胞胎，成为世界上最年长的母亲之一。
11 月 29 日，萨芬娜·纳穆克瓦亚 (Safina Namukwaya) 在首都坎帕拉的生育中心通过剖腹产产下一男一女。
国际妇女医院和生育中心认为纳姆克瓦亚是非洲最年长的母亲，并在脸书上发帖补充说，这不仅仅是医疗上的成功，还关乎“人类精神的力量和韧性”。
美联社援引医院发言人阿瑟·马齐科的话说：“她很健康。她正在说话。如果他们（医务人员）告诉她在医院周围走动，她就会四处走动。”
Namukwaya 使用捐赠的卵子和伴侣的精子进行体外受精 (IVF) 后怀孕了。
婴儿在31周时早产，体重超过1.3公斤。
英国广播公司 (BBC) 援引医院生育专家爱德华·塔马利·萨利 (Edward Tamale Sali) 博士的话说，他们被安置在保温箱中，他补充说，他们目前状况“稳定”。
Namukwaya 在东非国家的乡村还有一个三岁的女儿，她也是在同一家医院通过试管受精受孕的。
她说，年轻时因为没有孩子而被别人嘲笑，所以她一直想要孩子。
“我照顾别人的孩子，看着他们长大，留下我一个人。我想知道当我老了谁会照顾我，”她告诉乌干达《每日观察报》。
目前，纳木克瓦亚必须独自抚养孩子，因为她的伴侣在发现她怀有双胞胎后抛弃了她。
“男人不喜欢被告知你怀着多个孩子。自从我住进这里（医院）以来，我的男人就再也没有出现过，”她说。
不过，她并不太担心，因为村里的人都表示愿意伸出援手。
“由于我年事已高，一些家庭会帮我洗衣服和照顾婴儿，”纳穆克瓦亚说。
通常，女性在 45 岁至 55 岁之间会经历更年期，这意味着她们不再能够自然生育。 但医学的进步使老年妇女能够生育。
2006年12月，西班牙妇女玛丽亚·德尔·卡门·布萨达·德拉拉（Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara）在接受体外受精治疗后，以66岁高龄成为世界上最年长的母亲，引起了全世界的关注。
2009年7月，她因癌症去世，当时她的双胞胎儿子两岁半，孩子们现在由她的侄子和他的妻子照顾。
2019 年，来自印度南部安得拉邦的 73 岁农民埃拉马蒂·曼加亚玛 (Erramatti Mangayamma) 生下了一对双胞胎女儿。
新加坡一名55岁妇女于2022年生下一名婴儿，这使她成为自移民与关卡局开始发布年度报告以来第三位55岁及以上生育并登记婴儿出生的女性 1989年出生和死亡登记。
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