nick
January 18th, 2010, 07:35 AM
A 59-year-old woman, Sue Tollefsen, has become the oldest person to be offered fertility treatment at a British clinic.
Miss Tollefsen, a retired teacher, who already has a two-year-old daughter, has been approved in principle for IVF at the private London Women's Clinic on Harley Street, despite guidelines advising against treatment in those over 50.
The case has sparked a fierce debate over the ethics of fertility treatment for post-menopausal women and has led to calls for the Government to introduce legislation preventing it.
Miss Tollefsen, from Braintree in Essex, travelled to Russia to have her first child, Freya, two years ago, but now wishes to have a sibling for her daughter.
In September, she and partner Nick Mayer, who is 11 years her junior, approached the London Women's Clinic, one of the most successful IVF units in the country, after being turned down by scores of other centres.
She underwent a consultation with the clinic's medical director Peter Bowen-Simpkins who said there "compelling reasons" why she should be approved for treatment.
Mr Bowen-Simpkins said there remained a number of processes to go through before IVF could start, but the case had in principle received unanimous support from the clinic's governance committee.
Providing Miss Tollefsen fufills a series of strict criteria the case will go before the clinic's executive for full approval.
Last night Mrs Tollefsen told The Daily Telegraph: "I have always accepted that I would come up against a great deal of people who would be very negative about what we are doing.
"However, I think that when you look at the kind of loving and caring family we are, you have to ask: why should we be denied the opportunity to have another child and to give our daughter a sibling.
"I feel as fit as a fiddle approaching 60 and I'm confident that I could have a child, despite my age. Obviously, I do worry that, if I have another child, when he or she reaches their 10th birthday, I will be 70.
Full story here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7012127/Woman-of-59-offered-IVF.html)
Miss Tollefsen, a retired teacher, who already has a two-year-old daughter, has been approved in principle for IVF at the private London Women's Clinic on Harley Street, despite guidelines advising against treatment in those over 50.
The case has sparked a fierce debate over the ethics of fertility treatment for post-menopausal women and has led to calls for the Government to introduce legislation preventing it.
Miss Tollefsen, from Braintree in Essex, travelled to Russia to have her first child, Freya, two years ago, but now wishes to have a sibling for her daughter.
In September, she and partner Nick Mayer, who is 11 years her junior, approached the London Women's Clinic, one of the most successful IVF units in the country, after being turned down by scores of other centres.
She underwent a consultation with the clinic's medical director Peter Bowen-Simpkins who said there "compelling reasons" why she should be approved for treatment.
Mr Bowen-Simpkins said there remained a number of processes to go through before IVF could start, but the case had in principle received unanimous support from the clinic's governance committee.
Providing Miss Tollefsen fufills a series of strict criteria the case will go before the clinic's executive for full approval.
Last night Mrs Tollefsen told The Daily Telegraph: "I have always accepted that I would come up against a great deal of people who would be very negative about what we are doing.
"However, I think that when you look at the kind of loving and caring family we are, you have to ask: why should we be denied the opportunity to have another child and to give our daughter a sibling.
"I feel as fit as a fiddle approaching 60 and I'm confident that I could have a child, despite my age. Obviously, I do worry that, if I have another child, when he or she reaches their 10th birthday, I will be 70.
Full story here (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7012127/Woman-of-59-offered-IVF.html)