Be Informed: I went through hell for my late-life baby - but having one at 70 is WRONG: Radio 4's WINIFRED ROBINSON reflects on IVF

.Last month Indian Daljinder Kaur became the oldest new mother in history

.BBC journalist Winifred Robinson had her only child, Toby, through IVF

.She wonders whether being an older parent is in the child's best interests

By WINIFRED ROBINSON FOR THE BE INFORMED MAIL

PUBLISHED: 22:21 GMT, 18 May 2016 | UPDATED: 06:29 GMT, 19 May 2016

Photographs of parents with their newborns are always touching - the infants so helpless, the adults their only shield against the world.

The images of an Indian couple with their new baby, which were broadcast around the world last week, were no exception. In one, the mother cradles her son so tenderly, and kisses his tiny foot. It's an act of adoration every new parent will recognise.

Only, there is something poignantly different about this scene. The mother is Daljinder Kaur who, aged around 70, is thought to be the oldest new mother in history. Her husband, Mohinder Singh Gill, is 79

Daljinder Kaur, aged around 70, is thought to be the oldest new mother in history. Pictured holding her baby Arman

They'd achieved their dream after having fertility treatment at an Indian clinic with a reputation for getting women in their 50s and 60s pregnant. The pictures struck some people as so incredible that they rushed online to protest that the story couldn't be true.

Yet to me it doesn't seem at all incredible that a childless couple, even in old age, would want to hold their own baby in their arms.

I'm not surprised that this desire could be strong enough to override all worries about the risks to the mother's health and the near certainty that this precious child will be orphaned early in life. For I recognise that longing. Its power can't be underestimated by anyone who hasn't experienced it.

Though I was 30 years younger than Mrs Kaur, I too had my only child through IVF. I'd focused on work in my 20s and didn't meet my husband until I was 36.

We endured five years of infertility before our son was born - long enough for me to realise how deep-rooted the dream of parenthood can be and how searing the pain as that dream begins to die.

Daljinder and her husband, Mohinder Singh Gill, 79, achieved their dream after having fertility treatment at an Indian clinic with a reputation for getting women in their 50s and 60s pregnant

All the triumphs of my life - my work as a presenter on BBC Radio 4, my journalism awards, my loving marriage, my comfortable home - suddenly seemed as worthless as dust in the absence of a baby.

It's so hard to fail at something that everyone around you finds so easy. I began avoiding friends and family with children, because their evident happiness would stir up such envy inside me.

The experience taught me why childlessness is a unique torment. We all suffer big, one-off disappointments. They can be devastating but in time the hurt subsides. With infertility, hopes are raised and dashed in a cycle, month after month.

The pictures of Arman Singh, Daljinder's baby son, struck some people as so incredible that they rushed online to protest that the story couldn't be true

Had I been unsuccessful in my quest to have a child, would that pain have dissipated with time? I cannot see that it would. It would have followed me into my 50s, 60s and beyond.

For while you might think these feelings would end with the menopause - nature's cut-off point for making babies - that isn't always the case. A childless friend recently described how difficult it is seeing people her age with grandchildren. 'The sadness is familiar, I am used to it,' she told me, 'but it doesn't go away.'

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One in every 50 babies born in Britain is thanks to IVF - with 60 per cent privately funded.

Dr Elizabeth Bryan, a paediatrician and expert on twins who died childless in 2008, wrote movingly of her frustrated longing in her memoir, Singing The Life.

It was only when she had a hysterectomy in her late 50s that her dream of a miracle baby finally died, and she realised how big a part the hope of motherhood had played in her life.

Clinging on to hope is part of what makes us human and can be a saviour during our greatest trials. It's what makes us endure, and perhaps that is why some of us have been hard-wired to believe wishing can make our dreams become reality. Sometimes they do.

Visit the website of the National Fertility and Test Tube Baby Centre in India, where Mrs Kaur was treated, and you will see 30 aged couples with off their babes. Captions declare how long they've been waiting for a child - in one instance it's 50 years.

Dr Anurag Bishnoi, who owns the clinic, is unapologetic. 'The decision to undergo fertility treatments should be left to patients,' he told The Times Of India

Dr Anurag Bishnoi, who owns the clinic, is unapologetic. 'The decision to undergo fertility treatments should be left to patients,' he told The Times Of India. 'Reproduction is a fundamental right. The government cannot prevent that as the women are giving birth, not killing anyone.'

I tell myself that as an older mother I'm better equipped emotionally and financially. But that doesn't alter the obvious down-side: I won't be around for as long

This ignores the most important ethical question around any issues of parenthood: is it in the best interests of the child?

The question has been asked by the Indian authorities and there are guidelines advising that the combined age of a couple undergoing IVF should be no more than 110. But the guidelines are being disregarded in the absence of strict laws.

It is a question no older parent should ignore, because children are not ours by right, certainly not when we need medical help. We were incredibly lucky 16 years ago to have our son, Tony, after a single course of IVF.

I tell myself that as an older mother I'm better equipped emotionally and financially. But that doesn't alter the obvious down-side: I won't be around for as long.

Winifred Robinson was lucky to have her son, Toby, after a single course of IVF 16 years ago

My son was at primary school when he asked: 'How old will I be when you die, Mummy?'

This still plays over in my mind sometimes in the small hours of the night.

Thankfully in the UK, the interests of the child are protected by law. Rules passed in 1990 state that those providing fertility treatment must take account of the welfare of any children who are born as a result.

In practice this means IVF is seldom offered to women over 50. It is to prevent, so far as possible, those born through IVF from losing their mothers early in life.

Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, from Spain, became a mother to twins aged 66

When I saw Daljinder Kaur I was reminded of a similar story from 2006. Maria del Carmen Bousada de Lara, from Spain, became a mother to twins aged 66, having lied about her age at a Californian fertility clinic.

She believed longevity ran in her family - her mother had died at 101 - and even joked that she might live to see her grandchildren. Yet she died three years later, after being diagnosed with cancer soon after her sons were born.

I thought too of Susan Tollefsen, who became one of Britain's oldest mothers in 2008 after travelling to Russia for IVF treatment.

She was 57, and later conceded that the people who'd told her she was too old had been right.

The pressures of parenthood tore her relationship apart, and she described the sadness of raising her daughter alone, constantly in the knowledge that time was running out.

If I'd made a sensible decision, we would never have embarked on IVF. I'd had fertility drugs, surgery and a miscarriage and was told our chances of having a baby through the treatment were around one in ten.

I remember telling my embryologist that I couldn't take any more disappointment, that I might sink into depression if the treatment failed.

He said he was much less worried about my mental health than about the women who were absolutely confident that IVF would work for them, even when confronted with much worse odds.

Longing for a baby can become a kind of madness, fuelling hope when all hope should be gone, overcoming sensible caution and doubt.

It's what we see in the pictures of Mrs Kaur and her husband. It has blinded them to the possibility that their son may suffer without them when they die.

Susan Tollefsen, now 64, pictured with her partner Nick Mayer and their three-day-old daughter Freya, became one of Britain's oldest mothers aged 57 in 2008 after travelling to Russia for IVF treatment

'I'm looking after the baby all by myself,' she has said. 'I feel so full of energy . . . My life feels complete now. God will take care of everything.'

Longing for a baby can become a kind of madness, fuelling hope when all hope should be gone, overcoming sensible caution and doubt

I'd be the last person to condemn them or their simple faith in God. But Dr Bishnoi, whose fertility clinic made their wishes come true, is surely wrong when he says children are a fundamental right. That can't be the case for those of us who must rely on complex technologies to help produce a child.

Children are a privilege and a responsibility. We often moan about regulation, or 'red tape', but in this area of medicine where disappointment lasts a lifetime and can be so difficult to bear, we need dispassionate regulators to save us from ourselves.

They won't stop couples from travelling abroad to have IVF in countries with more lax regulation. But they will stand between many of us who long for parenthood and the babies of our dreams.

However painful, we must be grateful for that.