70-year-old Ugandan woman gives birth to twins after fertility treatment

Safina Namukwaya, 70, sits on a hospital bed at the Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Center after giving birth in Kampala on December 03, 2023. AFP

KAMPALA, Uganda — A 70-year-old woman in Uganda has given birth to twins after receiving fertility treatment, making her one of the world’s oldest new mothers.

Safina Namukwaya gave birth to a boy and a girl on Wednesday via cesarean section at the hospital in the capital, Kampala where she had been receiving in vitro fertilization treatment, said Arthur Matsiko, spokesman for the Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Center.

“She’s healthy. She’s talking. She’s walking around if they tell her to walk around the hospital,” Matsiko said Friday, speaking of Namukwaya, who had a daughter at the same facility in 2020 following IVF treatment.

Ugandan Doctor Edward Tamale Sali, a fertility specialist at the Women’s Hospital International and Fertility Center, helped Safina Namukwaya, 70, to give birth to twin babies and check on them at an incubator room in Kampala on December 03, 2023. AFP

Namukwaya is the oldest woman to deliver a baby at the hospital, whose proprietor is a prominent gynecologist in the East African region. The hospital specializes in helping couples who struggle to have children.

Breakthroughs in research are improving success rates in IVF treatment. Notably, the media reported that a 73-year-old woman in southern India gave birth to twin girls in 2019 after getting IVF care.