Quadruplets
(IN PHOTO) A nurse handles quadruplets in Stella Maris hospital in Medan, Indonesia's North Sumatra province January 24, 2012. A male and three other female babies are born to Indonesian couple Sonta Ria Nababan, 39, and Jon Pieter Manik, 38, on Monday. The babies are conceived under the insemination program after a four year wait by the couple, local media reported. Reuters

Annegret Raugnik, a 65-year-old German grandmother, made medical history last week by becoming the oldest woman to give birth to quadruplets. She delivered through Caesarian section Neeta, Dries, Bence and Fjonn. The four, since they are premature babies at under 26 weeks, are kept in incubators.

With the addition of four kids, Raugnik now has 17 children and seven grandchildren who are older than her latest babies. The teacher from Berlin and a single mother gave birth in 2005 to daughter Leila at age 55, reports CNN. Her older children, sired by five fathers, are aged 10 to 44, according to The Independent.

Now 10, Leila asked Raugnik for a younger sibling, so mum underwent in vitro fertilisation, or IVF, treatment, using donated eggs and sperm to become pregnant again. Raugnik insists she loves kids whom, she believes, keep her young.

She had the fertility treatments in Ukraine because Germany disallows such treatments. Raugnik’s high-risk pregnancy has raised some ethical questions why her doctors allowed her to bear children again in her advanced age.

However, the record for giving birth in her senior year has three claimants. One is 70-year-old Rajo Devi Lohan, an Indian woman who gave birth seven years ago after undergoing three rounds of IVF. Lohan’s daughter, Naveen, will be seven later this year.

Another is Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara from Spain who said she gave birth to twins in 2006 at 66, while Omkari Panwar of India, also mother to twins born in 2008 when she was 70, reports The Independent.

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