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Tokyo: A 61-year-old Japanese woman gave birth to her own grandchild, using an egg donated by her daughter, a clinic said yesterday. The surrogate mother was believed to be the oldest woman to have given birth in Japan.
Surrogate births are extremely rare in Japan and banned by industry groups, but they are not illegal.
The Suwa Maternity Clinic in Nagano, northwest of Tokyo, refused to provide information such as the date of the birth or gender of the baby. News reports said the baby was born last year.
The clinic said it performed the procedure because the woman's daughter has no uterus, but did not give details on why she had that condition. The surrogate mother used a fertilised egg donated by her daughter. "Both surrogate mother and baby were fine," said a spokeswoman for the clinic.
Dr Yahiro Netsu, who runs the clinic, has long defied national opposition to such procedures, arguing that they should be an option for woman who are infertile.
In 2001, he performed what is thought to be the country's first successful surrogate birth. In 1998, Netsu was expelled from Japan's gynaecology association for performing in-vitro fertilisations with eggs and sperm of donors who were not married to each other, though he was later reinstated.
Oldest surrogate
The spokeswoman said the 61-year-old woman was believed to be the oldest surrogate mother in Japan, and news reports said she was the oldest woman to have given birth overall.
The Japanese Health Ministry does not release precise statistics on mothers' ages, saying only that there were two births to women aged 55 or older in 2006, the latest year that figures were available for.
Mainichi newspaper reported that the previous oldest mothers in Japan were two 60-year-old women implanted with their own fertilised eggs in the United States.
Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, a powerful body with over 15,000 members, has banned such procedures, but they are not illegal and individual clinics are free to perform them.
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