A 67-year-old woman has given birth in China, a hospital said yesterday, with the parents claiming they are the country’s oldest couple to have a baby conceived naturally.
The woman, surnamed Tian, on Friday delivered a healthy girl by caesarean section, Maternity and Child Health Care Hospital in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province, told reporters.
“The child was bestowed on the two of us by heaven,” Tian’s 68-year-old husband, surnamed Huang, told Chinese news site guancha.cn.
The Global Times reported that the girl was named Tianci (天賜), 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 Weibo.
“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.”
Others wondered if Tian and Huang would be penalized for having more than the current allowance of two children.
In 2016, Beijing relaxed the one-child policy, allowing families to have two.
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