A 66-year-old farmer’s wife in Haryana has become the world’s oldest known mother of triplets after remaining childless for the past 44 years.
Born May 21, 1944, Bhateri Devi gave birth to two healthy boys and a little girl on May 29 at Hisar’s National Fertility Centre, where attending doctors employed the in-vitro fertilisation technique to help her conceive.
Her husband, Deva Singh (64), is ecstatic with three newborns in his home after bearing the pain of being without an heir over 44 years and three marriages. The farmer-turned-property dealer had married again and yet again when Bhateri Devi failed to give him the child he wanted so much.
And now he has not one but three boney babies and that too from his first bride. “Old is eventually gold!” Deva Singh declared proudly when the miracle of Bhateri Devi’s triplets was revealed to the world at Hisar on Sunday morning.
Dr Anurag Bishnoi of the NFC said, “The triplets are a happy coincidence. Bhateri had failed to conceive on two earlier attempts where two embryos were transferred to her womb each time. We made a third attempt with three embryos and were happily surprised when all three became implanted.” The babies were delivered through caesarean section and despite being frail and tinier that single children at birth, all three are healthy and now at home with their jubilant parents.
“This is the first documented instance where a 66-year-old woman has nurtured to full term and successfully given birth to three healthy babies,” said Dr Bishnoi, who has confirmed Bhateri Devi’s age from birth records available at the Rohtak district hospital.
The National Fertility Centre had earlier shot into prominence 18 months ago when Dr Bishnoi helped 70-year-old Rajo Devi become the oldest mom in the world when she gave birth to little Naveen Lohan, a little girl who quickly became the envy of all household with male children in Haryana’s society. Over the past 10 years, Dr Bishnoi and his colleagues have helped scores of childless couples. “More than a hundred women over 50 years of age have successfully given birth at our centre and this has been without a single case mortality of either the mother or the child,” he said.