61-year-old woman gives birth to her own grandson

Kristine Casey, a 61-year-old American, created history when she gave birth to her own grandson.

ANI news agency said that it was being surrogate for her daughter Sara Connell, who had been trying for years to have a baby.

Casey lives in American state of Illinois and broke several local records for being the surrogate mother for her daughter. The oldest woman to give birth in Illinois, according to state health department records, was 58 five years ago.

Connell and her husband, Bill, are the biological parents of the child Casey carried, which grew from an embryo created from the Chicago couple's egg and sperm, ANI said.

Connell told the Chicago Tribune that she and her mother held hands as Finnean Lee Connell was delivered by cesarean section at 9.47pm on Wednesday.

"When the baby let out a cry, I lost it. It's such a miracle," the Daily Mail quoted her as saying.

Susan Gerber, who delivered the baby at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said it would have needed a heart of stone to not be moved by the amazing event.

Meanwhile, Indian news agency IANS said surrogate pregnancy has seen a spurt in India due to healthier lifestyle of to-be-mothers and lower costs compared to the West and the country could become a global hub in the field.

'The reason why surrogate pregnancy is rising is mainly because of the low-cost factor, and the preferably healthy lifestyle of Indian women, much needed during pregnancy,” Shivani Sachdev Gour, fertility expert and gynaecologist, said.

“Women here are less exposed to a lifestyle with drugs, alcohol and smoking, which has a positive impact on the health of the baby as well as the mother. Also surrogacy laws in India are much lenient as compared to other countries,” Gour told IANS.

She says she gets around 25 patients every month from countries like Britain, the US, and countries in the Middle East at the Surrogacy Centre of India Healthcare, a private hospital she runs in south Delhi.

While the cost of treatment and expenses involved in surrogate pregnancy vary between Rs.50,000 (Dh4,000) and Rs.100,000 in India, the cost in other countries like the US and Britain is nearly five times that in India, said Gour.

According to experts, the success rate of surrogate pregnancy at centres in India is higher than in other countries.

“In over 60 per cent of cases, the prospective mother carries back a healthy baby, while the miscarriage rate is less than 15 per cent,” said Gour.

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