A SPANISH woman who became the world’s oldest mother at the age of 66 has died of cancer just two and a half years after giving birth to twins, raising fresh questions about the ethics of fertility treatment for women past natural childbearing age.
Maria del Carmen Bousada, a single mother and retired sales assistant from Cadiz, southern Spain, leaves behind her orphan sons, Pau and Christian. It was unclear who would now be looking after them.
Ms Bousada, who had reportedly been diagnosed with a tumour just a few months after the births in December 2006, had been living with her sons in a one-bedroom apartment and was being helped by her brother and sister-in-law, who are in their 70s.
They lived off the €600 she received for her pension and from child benefit payments. Her brother, Ricardo Bousada, reportedly said he had sold the rights to her story to a television company and that the proceeds would go towards raising the children.
Ms Bousada became pregnant after repeated visits to a fertility clinic in Los Angeles, where she lied about her age. She told the Pacific Fertility Clinic that she was 55, the cut-off age. She sold her apartment to pay for the treatment, which she did not start until her own mother, for whom she cared, had died.
An 18-year-old girl provided the egg and an Italian-American donor provided sperm, following which – after hormone treatment to reverse menopause – an embryo was implanted in her uterus.
“I picked them from photos in a catalogue,” she said of the donors. “It was a bit like studying an estate agent’s brochure and choosing a house.” After a difficult pregnancy the twins were born by Caesarean section at a clinic in Barcelona.
The clinic’s director, Vicken Sahakian, had expressed disappointment that Ms Bousada falsified records. Yesterday, he said: “I figured something might happen and wind up being a disaster for these kids, and unfortunately I was right.” – (Guardian service)