A Week After Welcoming the Twins She Longed for, Mom, 56, Dies

After a decade-long struggle with fertility issues, a 56-year-old Maryland woman died after giving birth to a pair of healthy but premature twins conceived with IVF. “She was just on cloud nine,” Lisa McLaughlin’s husband Mike, told the Omaha-World Herald about the day their babies were born. “That’s the happiest I’ve probably seen her in my life.” But just one week after the birth of her boys via cesarean section, McLaughlin died from a bowel obstruction, and now Mike, 67, will be raising their babies alone.

The tragic death of McLaughlin, a Red Cross medical officer, highlights the increased risks faced by women, especially older women, who more and more are using assisted reproductive technologies to push the boundaries of fertility.

“Even if you’re the healthiest of 56 year olds, I would say you should really give it some more thought,” Dr. Vincenzo Berghella, president of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, tells Yahoo Parenting. Berghella, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, says he is all for pregnancy for any woman who...