For the world’s ‘oldest mother’, Omkari Panwar, a son at last — and a daughter

Omkari Panwar and her twins

Rhys Blakely in Bombay

An Indian grandmother who claims to be 70 yesterday showed off her new twins to the world. Omkari Panwar, who lives in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has no birth certificate, but if her age was confirmed, the feat would make her the world’s oldest mother.

“I am very happy,” said her husband, Charam Singh Panwar, a retired farmer who is thought to be in his mid-seventies.

The couple, who already had two daughters in their thirties, were so desperate for a male heir that they spent their life savings and took out a bank loan to pay for IVF treatment.

“The desire for a male child has always been there, but God did not bless us with a male child. Now, we are very grateful to God, who has answered our prayers.”

The twins, a boy and girl both weighing about 2lbs, were delivered one month early by Caesarean section last month. Despite concerns over their low birth weights, doctors say they are doing well.

Mrs Panwar’s age has been deduced through her reminiscences of the last days of the British Raj. The grandmother of five, maintains that she was a child of nine years old when the British quit India in 1947.

This would make her the world’s oldest mother by some margin. In December 2006, a 67-year-old Spanish woman gave birth to twins in Barcelona. A woman thought to be about 65 gave birth to a boy in the state of Orissa, in the east of India, in 2003.

Mr Singh has admitted that he feared his wife would not survive her pregnancy and that his neighbours do not entirely approve of his decision to father a child as a septuagenarian. It is understood that his wife was confined to bed for eight months of her pregnancy and suffered chronic back pain throughout. The elderly couple also sold their buffalo to afford the treatment, which cost about £4,400. They now rely on charity from friends to make ends meet.

“It is a miracle,” he said. “Now, my wife is very happy.” The birth of the twins is likely to further raise concerns over the liberal use of fertility treatments in India, a country that has become the world leader in commercial surrogacy. Cheap medical care and medicines have made the subcontinent the destination of choice for foreigners who can not afford costly fertility treatments at home.

Male children are especially prized among India’s Hindus. Only a male heir can carry out funeral rites and female infanticide remains a chronic problem, largely because the dowry system, though banned, is commonly practiced.

Mrs Panwar said: “We paid all this money to the doctors for a son, but now we have the extra burden of another daughter as well.” Mr Singh, meanwhile, is realistic that his son is unlikely to ever be in a position to support his parents – he said he wanted a boy to carry on the family name and to inherit the family plot of land.

Doctor Nisha Malik, who performed Mrs Panwar’s emergency caesarean section, said that she was shocked to learn of her patient’s claimed age.

She had thought that the mother-to-be was, at most, 65.