Fertility stork visits 63-year-old woman

Patricia Rashbrook

BRITAIN - A 63-year-old child psychiatrist who is pregnant following fertility treatment has said the decision to become Britain's oldest mother required "courage and a great deal of thought".

Dr Patricia Rashbrook's baby is due in two months, after she paid a reported £50,000 ($143,151) for treatment with the controversial Italian fertility expert Dr Severino Antinori.

Pro-life groups have expressed outrage at the case but Rashbrook and her 61-year-old husband, John Farrant, insisted that they had thought about the consequences of becoming parents at pension age.

The couple said: "We are pleased to acknowledge this pregnancy, notwithstanding its unusual and potentially controversial aspects.

"We wish to emphasise that this has not been an endeavour undertaken lightly or without courage, that a great deal of thought has been given to planning and providing for the child's present and future well-being, medically, socially and materially."

They added: "We have greatly valued the warm support shown to us by family, friends and colleagues.

"We are very happy to have given life to an already much-loved baby and our wish now is to give him the peace and security he needs."

Rashbrook has a son aged 22 and a 26-year-old daughter from her first marriage. Her first husband died 10 years ago and she is believed to have married Farrant, an academic, only recently. They live in East Sussex.

Friends of the couple say that Rashbrook's grown-up children are happy about the news of their mother's pregnancy.

Rashbrook and her husband are believed to have travelled to Rome to be treated by Antinori at his clinic there.

They have refused to discuss the treatment they underwent, but it is unlikely that Rashbrook would have been able to use her own eggs.

Antinori has courted controversy before by treating post-menopausal women and claiming to have created a cloned human baby.

Most British clinics refuse to treat women over the age of 45.

- INDEPENDENT