Haya Shahar, a 65-year-old hassidic woman from Bnei Brak who was unable to have a baby during her 46-year marriage to 67-year-old Shmuel, gave birth on Monday to a healthy baby boy by cesarean section at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba. It made her the oldest woman in Israel to give birth – not far behind the world record holder, Spain’s Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, who was a few days shy of 67 when she gave birth to twins. The CDC life expectancy charts indicate that a child born to two 50-year-olds will lose his father when he’s 25 and his mother when he’s 30. It is illegal in Israel to perform IVF on a woman over 54.“We do not recommend this,” emphasized Dr. Tal Biron, an obstetrician/ gynecologist at the Kfar Saba hospital.“It is illegal to perform in-vitro fertilization on a woman of this age, and it is dangerous,” she explained. “There are many possible complications. Pregnancy is an unnecessary burden on the mother’s body.” 
 
 In spite of the medical risk, Dr. Biron shared, “We were very excited during the delivery. I have no doubt she will be an excellent mother. She is a very special person. The baby is very cute.”The risk of pregnancy complications increases as the mother’s age increases. Risks connected with childbearing over the age of 50 include an increased incidence of gestational diabetes, hypertension, delivery by cesarean section, miscarriage, preeclampsia and placenta previa (placenta too low in the uterus).In comparison to mothers between 20 and 29 years of age, mothers over 50 are at almost three times the risk of low birth weight, premature birth and extremely premature birth.
– A 65-year-old woman in Israel has just become a mother for the first time. The ultra-Orthodox woman gave birth to a healthy 5.9-pound baby boy this week, reports the Jerusalem Post. Haya Shahar did so thanks to IVF treatment she had outside the country, likely Russia, because Israel forbids the procedure for women older than 54. "We do not recommend this," says Dr. Tal Biron of Kfar Saba hospital. Nevertheless, he added that the baby is "very cute." Shahar's husband is 67, and they'd been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby throughout their 46-year marriage. The Post notes the sperm was either donated or bought, but the hospital won't specify; Haaretz says the couple used a donor egg. While the delivery (by C-section) makes Shahar the oldest woman to give birth in Israel, it's not a world record. Among the older verified births are one in Spain and another in Romania, both with women who delivered at age 66 after IVF treatments, notes the Mommy Files blog at the San Francisco Chronicle. The oldest woman on record to conceive naturally is a woman in the UK who gave birth at 59, it adds. Shahar and her husband credit a rabbi's blessing for their new son. "The baby is a darling and there is no despair in the world, and the chapter never ends," they said. (A 65-year-old woman in Germany is expecting quadruplets.)