67-year-old becomes China’s ‘oldest new mother’

BEIJING: A 67-year-old woman has given birth in China, a hospital said Monday, with the parents claiming they are the country´s oldest couple to conceive a baby naturally.

The woman, surnamed Tian, delivered a healthy girl by Caesarean section on Friday, Zaozhuang city´s Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital told AFP. "The child was bestowed on the two of us by heaven," Tian´s 68-year-old husband, surnamed Huang, told Chinese news site guancha.cn.

Tian told Jinan Times that she only discovered that she was pregnant when she went to the hospital for a health check, telling the newspaper: "I didn´t want it, initially." The hospital said it could not confirm that Tian had conceived naturally as she was already pregnant when it took her as a patient.

The Global Times reported the new baby girl was called "Tianci", meaning "gift from heaven". The Jinan Times said Tian already had two children, including a son born in 1977, two years before China imposed a one-child policy to control its burgeoning population. Reports of the birth drew criticism on China´s Twitter-like Weibo platform.

"The parents are too selfish," one commenter wrote. "At their advanced age they have no ability to take care of a kid, and the pressure will be on the older siblings." "Poor child, he´s going to start taking care of his elderly parents by the time he´s 20," wrote another.