Chinese mom, 67, gives birth to a girl

Beijing – A woman, 67, has given birth in China, a hospital said yesterday, 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 said.

“The child was bestowed on the two of us by heaven,” Tian’s husband, 68, surnamed Huang, told Chinese news site guancha.cn.

Tian told Jinan Times that she discovered she was pregnant when she went to the hospital for a health check, telling the newspaper: “I didn’t want it, initially.”

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.

Others wondered if Tian and Huang would be penalised for having more than the current allowance of two children.

In 2016, Beijing relaxed the one-child policy, allowing families to have two.

While the two-child policy has had a smaller effect on China’s birth count than expected, it has prompted more older women to consider having second children. – AFP