The boy, conceived via IVF, was born earlier this week

May 23, 2015 08:52 GMT  ·  By

Earlier this week, on Monday, a 65-year-old woman in Israel gave birth to a perfectly healthy baby boy. The infant, born at the Meir Medical Center in the city of Kfar Saba, is Haya Shahar's first child. 

Since the woman is not exactly in her prime, she failed to conceive naturally. Instead, she had to turn to in vitro fertilization to become pregnant.

When the time came for her to deliver her son, doctors chose to perform a cesarean section. The birth went smoothly, and both the 65-year-old mother and her newborn child are A-OK, reports say.

The woman is Israel's oldest mother

The Jerusalem Post tells us that the elderly Hasidic woman from Bnei Brak decided to turn to in vitro fertilization to become pregnant because, although married for 46 years, she was still childless.

Haya Shahar's 67-year-old husband, Shmuel, is not her newborn son's biological father. Rather, the woman is said to have been impregnated by doctors using donor sperm.

This is yet to be confirmed, but there are rumors that the 65-year-old had to travel all the way to Russia to conceive. This is because in vitro fertilization is illegal for women over the age of 54 in Israel.

In fact, even the team of medical experts who handled Haya Shahar's case and who helped her deliver her child do not recommend that elderly women try to become mothers.

“We do not recommend this. It is illegal to perform in-vitro fertilization on a woman of this age, and it is dangerous,” said Dr. Tal Biron, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Kfar Saba hospital

“There are many possible complications. Pregnancy is an unnecessary burden on the mother’s body,” the Meir Medical Center specialist went on to comment on this case.

At birth, Haya Shahar's son weighed 2.68 kilograms (nearly 6 pounds). Having successfully delivered her child at the age of 65, the woman is now Israel's oldest mother.

Not the oldest mother on record

It might be that 65-year-old Haya Shahar is the oldest mother in Israel, but her pregnancy is by no means a world record.

On the contrary, the world's absolute oldest mother was Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, who died in 2009. Back in December 2006, just days before turning 67, this woman in Spain delivered twins.