60-year-old woman gives birth to twin girls

IVF treatment.

A Chinese woman had twin girls at the age of 60 following IVF treatment after her only child died, making her possibly the oldest person in the country to give birth.

The case is extremely unusual in China, which has long maintained a one-child policy, because of the woman's age.

Worldwide, many countries and clinics impose limits on IVF treatment which is known to become less effective with age, and amid concerns for the resulting children's welfare.

Sheng Hailin, now 63, lost her first daughter, then in her late twenties, in an accidental gas poisoning case in 2009, the China Daily said.

"To survive and free myself of the loneliness, I decided to have another child in my old age," she was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

A military hospital in the eastern city of Hefei agreed to give her and her husband in vitro fertilization (IVF) therapy, the report said.

She gave birth to Zhizhi, who weighed 1.85kg, and Huihui, 1.45kg, on May 25, 2010 at the No. 105 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army, said the paper.

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