60-year-old has baby in emergency delivery

A first-time 60-year-old mother and her newborn daughter are healthy after an emergency cesarean delivery on Tuesday morning at the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot.

The mother, who wished to remain anonymous, was rushed to the hospital with preeclampsia, a condition that can potentially harm both mother and baby. It took a medical team including two gynecologists, two pediatricians, a midwife and three nurses an hour to deliver her 2.2-kilogram (4.85-pound) daughter, the hospital said.

The woman, who had undergone many years of fertility treatments, thanked the medical staff.

“As I arrived in the operating room a large medical team was waiting for me,” she said. “They calmed me down. Everyone was smiling. The greatest happiness in my life was when the team showed me my daughter. I have waited so many years for her.”

Preeclampsia is a condition that can develop in late pregnancy. Symptoms include a sudden rise in blood pressure and a large amount of protein in the urine. Left untreated, it can harm both mother and fetus.

Although this woman was the oldest to give birth in Kaplan Medical Center, the oldest ever to give birth in Israel was Haya Shahar, a 65-year-old Hasidic woman from Bnei Brak.

The oldest mother in the world was Daljinder Kaur, a 70-year-old Indian woman who gave birth earlier this year.