A 53-year-old woman gave birth to her own granddaughter after doctors informed the mother of the baby that carrying a pregnancy to term would be too risky for her.
The older surrogate mother became pregnant through in vitro fertilization, a process in which mature eggs are fertilized by sperm in a laboratory, and the embryo is then transplanted into a woman’s uterus.
Rosicléia de Abreu Carlsem, a substitute teacher and classroom assistant at a school in Florianópolis, southern Brazil, gave birth to a 7.3-pound Maria Clara on Aug. 1, 19, according to the city’s Municipal Secretary of Education.
Rosicléia agreed to be the surrogate mother after her daughter, Ingrid Carlsem, 29, accepted medical advice to avoid getting pregnant naturally. Ingrid suffered a pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis in 2014, and doctors said that would put her life at risk, probably due to blood clots, during pregnancy.
“A mother gives herself body and soul to a daughter. I feel grateful and honored to play such an important role, which is to generate a new life, my granddaughter, “said Rosicléia.
María Clara was born at 37 weeks at the Santa Helena clinic and maternity hospital in Florianópolis. She was 19 inches long and weighed 7.3 pounds. The delivery lasted almost 11 hours, according to a statement from the Ministry of Education.
Ingrid and her husband, Fabiano Chaves, witnessed the birth, and the family raised an estimated $ 6,600 for the IVF procedure and the costs of surrogacy, through crowdfunding and the sale of masks and dish towels.
“My mother’s gesture was one of greatness, a noble woman,” Ingrid said. “I think that even if I try to mention it or describe it in words, I will never be able to articulate how valuable it is to me. ”
There has been a significant increase in and other “assisted reproductive technologies” in Brazil, according to a study published by JBRA Assisted Reproduction in 2020. The first such birth occurred in 1978 in the United Kingdom.
“Access remains totally dependent on … financial resources,” the report concluded. “Since the introduction of assisted reproductive technologies in Brazil (1984) to the present, there has been a significant expansion of the supply in this country, although with an uneven distribution throughout the territory, with the southeast region having it. This is a brief summary.
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