Private fertility clinics should be forced to disclose the full costs and effectiveness of the treatment they give to post-menopausal women, a parliamentary committee will say this week, amid concerns that some vulnerable patients are being 'ripped-off'.

The latest figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) show that 24 women aged over 50 had babies after being treated at British fertility clinics in 2002. The HFEA estimates that it costs between £4,000 to £8,000 per cycle of IVF, and some women have four or five attempts.

The birth of a baby boy to 62-year-old Patti Farrant, of Lewes, East Sussex, who had her fertility treatment abroad with the controversial Italian fertility expert Severino Antinori, has again highlighted the issue of older women having babies. She became Britain's oldest mother when her son, known as JJ, was born by caesarean section at Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, last Wednesday.

This week, the House of Commons science and technology select committee will meet the Public Health Minister, Caroline Flint, and recommend that private clinics should publish information on prices and the proportion of post-menopausal women they have treated successfully.

Phil Willis, the Liberal Democrat chairman of the committee, said: 'Some private clinics abuse their licences as IVF clinics by taking people that they know are infertile and past their fertility cycle and charging them a lot of money. It's hard for some people to understand the lengths to which some women will go to have a child, and there's always someone there who will say, "I can do the job."

'We have to make sure the licence requires open disclosure about the cost and effectiveness of the treatment they are giving to post-menopausal women. It must be right that women have access to objective information that lets them make an informed choice and stops them being ripped off.'

Alan Thornhill, the scientific director of the private London Fertility Centre, in Harley Street, which publishes its success rates with women over 45 and its fees on its website, said: 'I support honesty and transparency in assisted conception. It is reasonable to expect all clinics to provide accurate success rates and fees for treating women of any age.' He added that post-menopausal women made up only a small fraction of the total number of women requiring assisted conception.

The HFEA website lists success rates at private clinics for women up to the age of 42 and a spokeswoman urged women older than this to ask individual doctors if they have treated patients in their age group before deciding to go ahead. Vishnee Sauntoo added: 'The HFEA would like to see people being given treatment plans before they start, detailing the full costs. We hear from patients that they may expect to pay a certain amount and then something else crops up which adds on, say, another £1,000. We wouldn't buy anything else without knowing what it would cost so why should IVF be any different?'

Mrs Farrant - a child psychiatrist who is known professionally as Dr Patricia Rashbrook - and her second husband John went abroad for treatment because no clinic in Britain would treat her due to her age. While there is no legal age limit, the majority of clinics do not take patients over 45. JJ, who weighed 6lb 10oz at birth, was the result of their fifth and final £10,000 attempt to conceive.

Mrs Farrant, already has three grown-up children aged 18, 22 and 26, but Mr Farrant, 60, a higher education management consultant, is a first-time father.

Speaking in yesterday's Daily Mail, Mrs Farrant said: 'From the moment I met John, it felt like there existed a baby-shaped space between us. Now that space has been filled with our wonderful son.

'Holding JJ now brings back wonderful memories of the time my adult children were babies, so it all feels very familiar, but in some ways I have moved on and developed in the two decades since my adult children were born. I hope those changes have been positive. I am sure I will have much more patience and as older parents our child will benefit from our insights and those of my older children.'

Mr Farrant added: 'Before his birth I thought I would weep copious tears... but when I first held him, I was simply awestruck. I thought, "Here he is after all this waiting and we'll be together forever because I'm his daddy".'

They defended themselves against claims they were selfish to have a child at their age, saying they had 'no regrets'. John said they had received more than 200 letters, cards, and emails of good will from members of the public and just one unsigned letter 'negative in tone'.

However Dr Allan Pacey, honorary secretary of the British Fertility Society and a senior lecturer at Sheffield University, said: 'This raises major ethical concerns. We believe this to be a misuse of reproductive technology and do not condone the practice. We believe that treatment using donor eggs should generally be confined to women under the age of 50. I accept the argument we are living longer, but I still think that it is treating children like commodities.'

Laurence Shaw, deputy medical director of the London Bridge Fertility Centre, said: 'People criticise a women in their sixties who want to have babies saying they won't live to see their grandchildren or they only have 20 years with their baby. Yet it was only 200 years ago that women only had 20 to 25 years to care for their offspring and help with the next generation. Nowadays 60-year-old women in many industrialised countries have a life expectancy of 80 or 90.'

However, Shaw does not believe there will be lots of women having babies in their sixties in the future. Instead, he hopes more will be done to help women wanting to start families in their thirties and forties.

I couldn't have babies when I was younger

Jenny Bashford, 59, had her first child, Rose, at 57, using an egg donated by her adopted daughter, Anneliese, 29. She is adamant her age is irrelevant to being a mother.

'I haven't found it difficult at all,' she says. 'Rose runs all over the place, but I keep up fine. I was conscious people would think I was much older when I was in hospital having Rose, but they were all lovely to me. If Rose gets teased for having older parents, we'll deal with it.'

She and her husband, Roger, found they had fertility problems in the Seventies and adopted Anneliese, 29, when she was five. 'We tried everything but medical science wasn't as wonderful as it is now,' she said.

As her dreams of having a child faded, she read about Ian Craft, director of the London Fertility Centre, one of the few that help women over 50 to become pregnant. She had three attempts at IVF using anonymous egg donors and became pregnant once but miscarried. She wanted one last try and Anneliese donated some eggs.