A 70-year-old Ugandan woman, Safina Namukwaya, has given birth to twins – a boy and a girl – via Caesarean section at a fertility centre in the country’s capital, Kampala.
She told local media it was a “miracle”, while the hospital said it was “more than a medical success; it’s about the strength and resilience of the human spirit”.
Dr Edward Tamale Sali, a fertility specialist at the Women's Hospital International and Fertility Centre (WHI&FC), told BBC the mother used a donor egg and her partner’s sperm for the in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) procedure.
The babies were born prematurely at 31 weeks and placed in incubators, and were currently “stable”.
“We’ve achieved the extraordinary – delivering twins to Africa’s oldest mother aged 70!” the WHI&FC posted on its Facebook page.
Namukwaya told The Nation newspaper that her pregnancy had been difficult because her partner abandoned her when he realised she was going to have twins.
“Men don’t like to be told you are carrying more than one child. Since being admitted to hospital, he has never showed up,” she said.
This is Namukwaya’s second delivery in three years. She gave birth to a baby girl in 2020.
She said she had wanted to have children after she was mocked for being childless.
“I looked after other people’s children and watched them grow up and leave me alone. I always wondered who would take care of me when I grow old,” she is quoted as saying.
She said her husband had died in 1992, and that she had suffered a miscarriage during the marriage.
When asked about her ability to take care of the babies, she said: “I don’t really know, God is in charge …”
Sali said that “age is just a number”.
“She is not the first. In the past 15 years we have delivered more than 60 patients over the age of 50.”
BBC article – Seventy-year-old Ugandan woman gives birth to twins (Open access)
Nation article – 70-year-old Ugandan granny gives birth to twins (Restricted access)
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