Uganda Hospital Celebrates 'Africa's Oldest Mother'

It may not be the record for the oldest woman to give birth, but it's in the conversation. A 70-year-old woman in Uganda gave birth to twins after having IVF treatment, reports the BBC. "We've achieved the extraordinary—delivering twins to Africa's oldest mother aged 70!" the Women's Hospital International and Fertility Centre in Kampala wrote on social media. Safina Namukwaya had a boy and a girl via caesarean, and the hospital says all three are doing well, per the Messenger.

"There is no way to express my joy at this moment," Namukwaya told AFP, per NDTV. "At 70 years when I'm considered weak, unable to get pregnant and deliver, or look after a baby, and here is a miracle of the twins." After going most of her life childless, Namukwaya now has three children, having had a baby girl in 2020. However, she told the local Daily Monitor that her partner since 1996 appears to have left her. "Ever since I was admitted here, my man has never showed up," she said. "Men don't like to be told that you are carrying more than one child." In 2019, the BBC reported that a 73-year-old woman gave birth to twin girls in India. (More Uganda stories.)