Baby born to Africa''s oldest IVF mum gets educational insurance

A baby girl born to a 63 year old retiree last year who was said to be the oldest IVF mum in Africa has been offered an educational insurance policy by the Alps Hospital and Diagnostics where she was born.

The now one year old Bes-Hannah whose mum, Margaret Davou now 64 years was delivered through caesaeian section having been conceived through In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) at the GynaeVille Specialist Hospital, which is now Alps Hospital and Diagnostics.

Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Kenneth Egwuda, a Consultant Gynaecologist and IVF Specialist said during the toddler’s first birthday in Jos that the insurance policy was part of the hospital’s corporate social responsibility to cater for her education from kindergarten to tertiary institution.

Egwuda said, "considering the age of the parents and being retirees, we feel by the time this baby grows and need quality education, they may not actually be strong enough to provide such hence we take it upon ourselves as part of our corporate social responsibility to provide the education insurance policy to ensure the child gets a quality education when the time comes."

He explained that based on a debate on the age of women permitted to have such treatments, the cut-off was put at 50, 52 years adding that when Margaret conceived, he didn’t understand that something fundamental had happened until a friend who was part of the treatment team called his attention to the fact that Margaret was the oldest woman reported to have conceived through the procedure in Africa.

While narrating his encounter with the Davou’s the IVF specialist said, "she visited us with a desire to achieve conception, her age was 62 at that time so we started the treatment. Initially there was nothing striking about her age because physically, she looked very strong and she didn’t have any metabolic disease or any ageing illness apart from the hypertension and we discovered that she was fairly in a good health condition to attempt this modality of treatment."

Expressing appreciation for the gesture, parents of the child, Francis and Margaret Davou commended the hospital and their doctors for their efforts saying, “We are very happy having looked for this baby for about 38 years years, God decided to answer our prayer."

Baby born to Africa”s oldest IVF mum gets educational insurance