Spanish 64-year-old sees twin babies taken into care

A Spanish woman who gave birth to twins in February at the age of 64 has had her two babies taken away from her by social services.

Authorities in the northern Spanish city of Burgos said that Mauricia Ibáñez's seven-week-old babies were in a "vulnerable" situation and have been placed with a temporary care family, Reported The Daily Telegraph.

According to the newspaper El Mundo, the social services department had set preconditions for Ms Ibáñez, who became the oldest living woman in Spain to have given birth after giving birth in Burgos in February, including having a professional carer in the home. Ms Ibáñez had also been ordered to attend a family support centre on a regular basis.

It is the second time that Ms Ibáñez has become a mother thanks to IVF treatment only to have her babies taken into care. Her first child, a daughter born when the single mother was 58, was taken into care at the age of three due to neglect, and now lives in Canada with relatives.

"Better sooner than later. It was worse the way they did it last time, waiting until the girl was three years old and making it a terrible trauma both for the mother and the girl," a friend of Ms Ibáñez told El Mundo.

The social services department of the Castilla y León region said that the decision would be reviewed after six months.

Ms Ibáñez's decision to become a mother at such an advanced age has sparked controversy in Spain. Spanish law does not place a limit on the age that a woman can seek fertility treatment, but Ms Ibáñez travelled to the United States to conceive her twins before appearing at a Burgos hospital at an advanced stage of pregnancy.

Ms Ibáñez was supported in her decision by Lina Álvarez, a Spanish woman who gave birth to a baby girl last year at the age of 62.

The oldest woman in Spain to have given birth was Carmen Bousada, who died of cancer in 2009 less than three years after giving birth to twins conceived in the United States as a result of fertility treatment.