Mother-to-be, 63, defends decision to have a baby

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

Dr Patricia Rashbrook paid a reported £50,000 for treatment with the controversial Italian fertility expert Dr Severino Antinori and the baby is due in two months' time. Anti-abortion groups expressed outrage at the case, but Dr Rashbrook and her husband, John Farrant, 61, said they had thought about the consequences of becoming parents at pension age.

In a statement yesterday, 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."

Dr Rashbrook, who has a son aged 22 and a 26-year-old daughter from her first marriage, is a consultant child psychiatrist with the East Sussex Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Her first husband died 10 years ago, and she is believed to have married Mr Farrant, an academic who is writing a book on 16th-century maritime history, only recently. They live in a Georgian townhouse in Lewes, East Sussex.

Friends of the couple say Dr Rashbrook's grown-up children are happy about their mother's pregnancy. She has also informed the NHS trust which employs her about the pregnancy and, according to reports, intends to return to work.

Dr Rashbrook and her husband are believed to have travelled to Rome to be treated by Dr Antinori at his clinic there. They have refused to discuss the treatment, but it is unlikely that Dr Rashbrook would have been able to use her own eggs and may instead have had IVF using donated eggs and sperm as well as needing hormone treatment.

Dr Antinori said the couple first consulted him three years ago. "When a couple love each other, it's natural they want to have a baby," he said. "Age isn't important in this decision; what's important is the physical condition of the mother."

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

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the UK regulatory agency, has not imposed an age limit on women, but the law states that doctors must take into account the welfare of the child and the ability of patients to provide a stable and healthy upbringing.

Josephine Quintavalle, from the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "It is extremely difficult for a child to have a mother who is as old as a grandmother would be. She is being selfish and sometimes greater love is saying no."

Matthew O'Gorman, of the campaign group Life, said: "We see this just as another component in our culture where children are treated as a means to an end. He or she is going to be without a mother or father at the most crucial moment of adolescence or when that child is growing to maturity. This is not the way to bring a child into the world."

Most British clinics refuse to treat women over 45, although some doctors, such as Professor Ian Craft, have treated women in their fifties. In January last year, Adriana Iliescu, a 67-year-old Romanian, became the oldest woman in the world known to have given birth.

Women over 40 who become pregnant have double the risk of stillbirth and other complications.

Ethical or not?

PROFESSOR IAN CRAFT IVF expert

"I do not think it sensible for that lady to receive treatment at the age of 63. She had an increased chance of having toxaemia in pregnancy ... you could have a haemorrhage in pregnancy, the baby could be at risk.

It brings IVF into a certain degree of disrepute when at the moment there is a great need... for more egg donors."

GERMAINE GREER Writer and academic

"I think the desire to have a child in your sixties is irrational and it is unethical to assist her. I do not want to infringe on her civil liberties, but if you have 50- and 60-year- old women wanting to get pregnant, you should treat them with hypnosis.

I would not criticise her, but I do not envy the child."

PHILLIP HODSON psychotherapist

The motivation for having a baby at any age is always a good question for a psychotherapist. The strongest argument against having a baby in your sixties is that the mother could die next year, this year, tomorrow. But on the other hand, there are babies born to 25-year-olds who are neglected, abandoned and sometimes killed.

ALLAN PACEY expert on male fertility

"I wish them well, but I wouldn't like to see too many people doing this. They say they have thought about the child's welfare, but it's risky.

My personal feeling is that nature designed us to have babies when we are in our late teens or early 20s, and we are bucking the trend anyway by waiting. Having them in our 60s isgoing to the limit."