Japanese Woman Gives Birth at 60

A 60-year-old Japanese woman became the nation's oldest new mother when she gave birth to a healthy baby after undergoing in-vitro fertilization in the United States.

The announcement Monday came as increasing numbers of infertile Japanese couples eager to have children are looking overseas for infertility treatments, which are not easily available in this country.

The woman became pregnant last winter after undergoing an in-vitro fertilization procedure at the Nevada Center for Reproductive Medicine using her husband's sperm and ova donated by an Asian woman, said Yuki Sumi, head of the Information Center for Surrogate Motherhood in Tokyo, the center that coordinated the procedure.

Sumi said the woman gave birth to a healthy baby �� her first �� late last month at a hospital in downtown Tokyo, but declined to identify her, disclose the baby's gender or give the nationality of the ova donor.

She is believed to be the oldest woman ever to give birth in Japan, Sumi and Japanese news reports said.

Guinness World Records 2001 lists two 63-year-old women who have given birth: Rosanna Della Corte of Italy in 1994 and Arceli Keh of California in 1996. News reports, however, have put Della Corte's age at 62 when she gave birth.








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