World’s oldest new mom dies, leaves twin toddlers

MADRID – A Spanish woman believed to have become the world’s oldest new mother when she gave birth at 66 has died at 69, leaving behind twin toddlers, newspapers reported Wednesday.

Maria del Carmen Bousada, who reportedly died Saturday, gave birth in December 2006 as a single mother after getting in vitro fertilization treatment at a clinic in Los Angeles.

The births ignited a firestorm of debate over how old is too old for a new mother and how much responsibility fertility clinics have over who gets treatments.

Bousada told an interviewer she lied to the fertility clinic about her age, and maintained that because her mother had lived to be 101, she had a good chance of living long enough to raise a child.

Bousada’s death was reported by the newspapers El Mundo and Diario de Cadiz.
Diario de Cadiz quoted her brother, Ricardo Bousada, as confirming her death but refusing to disclose the cause. The newspaper said she had been diagnosed with a tumor shortly after giving birth.

The Barcelona-based newspaper El Periodico de Catalunya quoted Ricardo Bousada as saying he sold the exclusive on his sister’s death to an unidentified TV program and that the proceeds would go to looking after his sister’s twins.

The newspaper quoted him as saying that it had been “very difficult. Lately, she had been really bad.” He could give no further details because of the arrangement, the newspaper reported.

There was no word on who would raise the children, named Pau and Christian. Bousada had once said she would look for a younger man to help her raise them.

“I think everyone should become a mother at the right time for them,” Bousada said in a video of the interview provided to Associated Press Television News.