15-7-2023 (SINGAPORE) Singapore witnessed the birth of a baby by a 55-year-old woman in 2022, making her the country’s oldest mother of a newborn that year. A recent report by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) revealed that she is only the third woman aged 55 or older to have given birth and registered the birth of a baby since 1989 when the ICA began publishing its annual report on births and deaths, according to The Straits Times.
The report, released on June 30, disclosed that out of approximately 35,000 women who gave birth in 2022, only one mother fell into the 55-and-older age bracket. The woman, a university graduate, welcomed her second child into the world.
An ICA spokesperson confirmed that the 55-year-old woman had given birth to a baby boy. Previously, The Straits Times had reported that in 2016, a 58-year-old woman gave birth to twins, making her the oldest mother at that time. However, the exact age of the woman who gave birth in 2019 remains unknown, although she belonged to the 55-and-older age group.
This occurrence reflects a rare yet growing trend of women aged 50 and older embracing motherhood, challenging the conventional norms and limitations associated with childbearing. Between 1989 and 2009, six women aged 50 and older gave birth to a total of seven babies, including one set of twins. However, from 2010 to 2019, the number increased fivefold, with 33 women in this age group giving birth to 41 babies.
In the period from 2020 to 2022, nine women aged 50 and older gave birth to nine babies, as confirmed by The Straits Times. One of the most notable examples of late-in-life motherhood is veteran actress and Getai singer Liu Ling Ling, who gave birth at the age of 50 in 2013. Liu had previously revealed in interviews that her son was conceived through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Experts in the field, such as Dr. Liu Shuling, director of the KKIVF Centre at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, explain that a woman’s egg quantity and quality decline as she ages. Dr. Liu noted that by the age of 50, most women have reached menopause, making natural conception impossible. Conceiving naturally after menopause is considered “very rare,” she added.
Dr. Suresh Nair, medical director of Monash IVF Singapore, shared that he has four patients in their 50s who have given birth, with the oldest among them being 52. These women relied on egg donors to conceive through IVF, meaning that the babies are not biologically related to the mothers but to the egg donors and Dr. Nair’s patients’ husbands. The IVF procedure took place overseas, typically in countries like Malaysia and the United States, as the age limit for IVF treatment in Singapore was only lifted in 2020.
Dr. Nair emphasized that these women’s strong desire to have children compelled them to navigate the obstacles and risks associated with late-in-life pregnancy. Some had been attempting to conceive for years, while others remarried and sought to have a child with their new partners.
Medical professionals attribute the growing number of late-in-life mothers to the awareness that assisted reproductive technology can enable women in their mid-40s to 50s to become mothers. The hope for motherhood has been reignited by news of celebrities like singer Janet Jackson and supermodel Naomi Campbell having children in their 50s.
Dr. Nair stressed that pregnancy at such an advanced age carries significant risks, and thorough medical evaluations are conducted to ensure the women are physically capable of carrying a pregnancy. Associate Professor Su Lin Lin, head of the division of maternal fetal medicine at the National University Hospital, highlighted the higher risk of miscarriage during the first trimester for older women. Additionally, babies born to older mothers are more prone to chromosomal abnormalities and other complications such as pregnancy-induced hypertension, pre-eclampsia, and gestational diabetes.
Dr. Liu further revealed that the risk of pregnancy-related complications leading to death for a 45-year-old woman is ten times higher compared to a woman aged 35 or younger. The risk of miscarriage also increases with age, with a 45-year-old woman facing a 90% chance of miscarriage.
The world’s oldest mother, Madam Mangayamma Yaramati from India, delivered twins at the age of 73 in 2019 using donor eggs and IVF. Her husband, who was at least five years older than her, sadly passed away due to a heart attack a year after their daughters were born.
