The 63-year-old child psychiatrist set to become Britain's oldest mother appeared to take controversy in her stride yesterday, saying she was very happy to be pregnant but requesting privacy for the sake of the family life she and her husband were hoping to enjoy.
"We are delighted with the pregnancy. We just want you to know that we take our responsibilities to our child very seriously and we wish now to be allowed privacy and space," said Patricia Rashbrook at her house in Lewes, East Sussex. The consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, and her husband, John Farrant, 61, had gone to the former Soviet Union, where they were treated in November by the controversial Italian Severino Antinori, who is most famous for vowing to clone a baby.
"The case of the English woman gave me great joy," Dr Antinori said yesterday. He said Dr Rashbrook, who is seven months pregnant, was perfect for the treatment - although she was 62 when she was implanted with an embryo from a donated egg, she had a biological age of 45, he said. "The couple love each other, she is slim, blonde and in perfect condition, she fits all the criteria for maternity. She should live for at least 20 to 25 years - we are not giving birth to an orphan," he said.
Earlier, in a statement, the couple said they did not think it appropriate to discuss details of their circumstances. It added: "We wish however to emphasise that this has not been an endeavour undertaken lightly or without courage, that a great deal of thought has been given to ... providing for the child's present and future wellbeing, medically, socially and materially."
Critics, including a relative, however, disputed whether it was in the baby's interests to have a mother and father in their early 70s by the time it was 10.
"I'm the same age as Patricia and when I look after my grandchildren I'm tired after 10 minutes because of all the mischief they cause," said Valerie Rashbrook, 63, whose husband is a distant cousin.
"I really don't know how she is going to manage looking after a newborn. I think she is mad and I think my views are the same as what everybody else is thinking."
Josephine Quintavalle of the lobby group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "She is being selfish and sometimes greater love is saying no. It is extremely difficult for a child to have a mother who is as old as a grandmother would be."
There are no rules preventing fertility clinics in the UK treating a couple in their 60s, but doctors refuse because of health risks of the pregnancy for the woman and issues about the child's welfare.
Even if the experts were willing to help, the couple would then face the chronic shortage of donor eggs in the UK, which has intensified in the past year or so since the law was changed to remove the anonymity of the donor. Children born from donated eggs can be told the identity of their genetic parent when they are 18. Dr Rashbrook has passed the menopause, which sets in at about aged 50, and would not be able to produce eggs.
Dr Rashbrook and her husband approached Dr Antinori, who has consistently stirred controversy and excited outrage at his clinic in Rome. While he is best known for saying he would clone a human being - along with the American fertility doctor Panos Zavos - Dr Antinori now has a reputation for achieving pregnancies in the over-60s. The Italian press call him "the father of impossible children".
But since he stunned the world by implanting a donated and fertilised egg in a 62-year-old Italian woman in the early 1990s, the laws have been tightened in his country. Last week the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) warned against "fertility tourism". And yesterday it said there was no age limit on fertility treatment in the UK, but a spokeswoman added that the law says "clinics must take into account the welfare of the child including the health, age and ability to provide for the needs of the child or children".
In practice, UK fertility doctors tend not to treat women beyond the age of 45 or so, beyond which point they are generally unable to produce viable eggs of their own. They might still treat them using donated eggs, but not for long.
Richard Kennedy, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the University Hospital, Coventry and a spokesman for the British Fertility Society, said: "There is a general consensus in the UK that 50 is a threshold at which the natural menopause often occurs and above which treatment should not be provided - not because it can't be done but because of the increased risks to the mother." Women over 50 will have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, he said.
Helen Kendrew, a fertility nurse specialist in Bath who also represents the society, said it was important that women realised that donated eggs were usually involved for those over 40.
But if a woman of Dr Rashbrook's age came to a UK clinic for donor eggs, she would probably be refused, she said. "The supply of donors is so short that clinics are having to consider who they would give eggs to," she said. "Faced with a young woman with a premature menopause, most donors would prefer her to have the eggs [rather than an older woman]."
