More and more women are delaying motherhood, whether for sentimental, career, or economic reasons; and increasingly, children are born when their mothers are in maturity. Assisted reproductive techniques offer the opportunity to combine motherhood and menopause, and many women are taking advantage of this.
In Spain, there is no age limit for fertility treatments in women, although the National Commission for Assisted Human Reproduction recommends a “limit” of 50 years to avoid major problems. This is true in private health care because Social Security in Spain requires that treatments be covered only for women under the age of 40 and men under the age of 50.
Even so, it is common for us to see women over 40 fulfilling their dream of becoming mothers. Cases like that of Adriana, who became a mother at 66, Christine Boama at 50, or the most recent, Rebecca at 44, have made headlines inNow, there is also a phenomenon that is beginning to be more and more frequent: women over 50 giving birth. Today we have another unusual case, that of Barbara Higgins, an American teacher who has become a mother at 57 years old.
Barbara was able to see the face of her third child, whom she has named Jack, and who has made her the oldest woman to give birth naturally in the state of New Hampshire, Jack arrives after Barbara and her husband Ken have been trying to conceive naturally without success. Her desire to have a third child came in 2016 when they lost their daughter Molly to a brain tumor. After some years of mourning, they decided to do what they could to increase their family. However, Barbara wants to make it clear that Jack has not come to replace her daughter Molly, although she admits that the little boy would probably not exist if the.
“Already then, I felt like an ‘older’ mother; all my friends had already had their children by then,” said Barbara. However, she did not expect that she would experience another pregnancy more than two decades later. The woman admits that it has not been an easy process, but by taking more risks, she has lived it with more feelings and intensity. Her husband Ken, at 65, says he feels “younger than 10 years ago” and is prepared for this challenge.