Doctors: Oldest mother and baby doing well day after historic birth

BUCHAREST, Romania - A 66-year-old professor who writes children's books claims to have become the world's oldest woman to give birth, and doctors said Monday she and her day-old baby daughter were in good condition in intensive care.

Doctors at the Giulesti Maternity Hospital in Bucharest said Adriana Iliescu became pregnant through in vitro fertilization using sperm and egg from anonymous donors. They said she delivered her first child, Eliza Maria, by Caesarean section on Sunday and that a twin sister was stillborn.

"The child is eating a bit of glucose," Dr. Mirela Ranga, a hospital spokeswoman, said Monday. "Mrs. Iliescu is still in intensive care, but she is moving around. She is expected to go see her daughter a bit later."

News of the birth at one of the capital's leading gynecological clinics sparked debate in Romania over the ethics of women beyond the age of fertility having babies. One church official said it was shocking.

Iliescu sat up in her hospital bed Monday and told Associated Press Television News she was "more than happy" to have given birth. Dr. Bogdan Marinescu, who runs the hospital, said the unmarried professor of literature from Bucharest had undergone nine years of fertility treatments.

AP video of Eliza Maria showed her squirming in an incubator. She was dressed in a pink and white bodysuit with a pale pink woolen hat. Doctors said she was breathing on her own.

The child was born more than six weeks short of a full 40-week pregnancy, the hospital said. She weighed just 3 pounds, 3 ounces, less than half the weight of an average newborn and was in the intensive care unit.

Doctors performed the Caesarean section after the smaller of Iliescu's twins died in the womb, Ranga said. That child weighed just 1 pound, 8 ounces, she said.

Marinescu said Iliescu's pregnancy was achieved on the first attempt, and that she initially was carrying triplets but lost the third fetus after nine to 10 weeks.