In February, a baby boy made Chinese reproductive history because at 12 years in the laboratory before he was finally born, the infant was the longest-preserved test tube baby in China. The boy’s mother, a 40-year-old woman from Shaanxi Province, decided to have another child when Beijing lifted the one-child policy in 2016 and allowed Chinese parents to have two children.
Another Chinese woman broke another record on June 27 when Zhang, a 61-year-old woman from Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, gave birth through Caesarian section. In 2014, the woman’s first child – a 30-year-old woman – died of illness which made Zhang decided to get pregnant and give birth in her senior years.
Although she is the oldest new mother in Zhejiang and the second oldest in China, the Women’s Hospital affiliated with Zhejiang University’s School of Medicine did not publicize the event to avoid giving the impression that it is okay for women in their 50s and 60s to still give birth, noted China Daily.
Although Zhang and her son were in good condition after she was discharged on July 5, it was an extremely difficult second pregnancy – after three decades – as she bled twice and had hypertension during pregnancy and more bleeding, unstable blood pressure and anesthesia problems post-birth.
Zhu Yimin, director of the hospital’s Reproductive and Endocrine Department, explained that at 35, the quality and quantity of a woman’s eggs decline, resulting in lower pregnancy success rate and higher risk of miscarrying the fetus or giving birth to a baby with defects. In Zhang’s case, she underwent IVF to bear a child again in her retirement years.
Although experts discourage the practice, they are aware that older women whose adult or teen child dies go for a second chance to be a mother again even if it is risker, which are the unintended consequences of the country’s 30-year-old one-child policy.
China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission estimated that 1 million families across the country are in a similar situation as Zhang, and their number is increasing by 76,000 a year. As a result, by 2012, there are 355,000 Chinese families in which the mother gave birth again at 49 or older.
Due to the practice becoming more popularity, the hospital has opened a second-child counseling clinic whose patients are women age 40 and above.
With the end of the one-child policy and introduction of the two-child policy, demand for IVF procedures is expected to rise, reported Reuters.