Britain’s oldest new parents, aged 63 and 65, have baby taken away

A couple who became Britain’s oldest new parents at the ages of 63 and 65, are said to be “devastated” after social services took their one-year-old child from them. 

A report from The Sun says the couple’s age is thought to be a factor in concerns over the child’s well-being.

the couple had the child through a surrogate using the father’s sperm and a donor egg.  Social Services reportedly first spoke with the couple, who are from north England, last year and warned them that they had to make changes in how the child was being cared for. 

However, it was decided that the necessary measures to ensure the child’s well-being had not been taken into effect and so social services took the baby into care.

The parents reportedly spent more than £100,000 (A$181,845, US$137,694) on the surrogate mother, who was in her 30s. It’s believed that she was impregnated using the father’s sperm and a donor egg.

Read more: 65 and pregnant with quads

The case has gained plenty of attention in Britain, but the couple aren’t the only over-60s to have had kids later in life. In 2016, a 62-year-old Tasmania woman became Australia’s oldest mother, after giving birth to a daughter conceived through IVF with her 78-year-old partner.

Another mother, Anthea Nicholas, made headlines in 2011, after giving birth to her son, (who is now six), at the age of 50, having fallen pregnant naturally. Burns told news.com.au, “We were advised by both our GP and our obstetrician to terminate the pregnancy. We had to give it some serious consideration, but [husband] Pete was stronger than I was and felt really blessed”.

And these Aussies are relatively young compared to the world’s oldest mother, Indian woman Daljinder Kauer, who was 70 when she gave birth after two years of IVF treatment. 

Read more: Too old to have a child: The ‘right’ age to be a mum is a tricky one

The increasing trend of having babies later in life is a big change to previous generations. In the 1920s, the most common ages to have babies were between 20 and 29, and that remained the same in until the ’80s. But since then, the age of new mums has been rising, and now the median age for Australian women to give birth is 30.6 years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. However, this is still increasing, with the number of mothers aged 40-44 tripling in the past 30 years.

What do you think? Is it fair on the child to have parents already in their 60s when they’re born? Could you handle having a new kid at your age?