BT FACTCHECK

MISLEADING: 64-Year-Old Woman Who Gave Birth To Twins Not From Kisii

BT ReporterOct 11, 20211.7k

The picture above of a senior couple with two new-borns has been circulating online over the past few weeks, with a caption indicating that the woman had given birth to the twins at a Kisii hospital.

“A 64-year-old woman, Patricia Kemunto, gave birth to twins at the Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital,” says a caption of the photo published on sunsetkenya.co.ke. “Congratulations to mama, who has broken the Guinness World Record for giving birth at the age of 64. Until the birth of the twins, her lastborn child was 42 years old.”

A fact-check by Business Today revealed that the caption of the photo indicating the woman hails from Kisii County is misleading. In fact, the photo – which features Nigerian mother Margaret Adenuga and her husband Noah with their twins, a boy and a girl, at the maternity ward of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, was first published by CNN on April 22, 2020.

CNN reported that Margaret Adenuga had gone through three IVF procedures before giving birth to twins (a boy, and a girl) at the age of 68. Her husband Noah Adenuga, 77 is quoted saying the couple, who married in 1974, had long desired to have a child. According to the report, the babies were delivered via caesarean section at 37 weeks.

Also, a Google reverse search reveals the image has been used with the CNN article as well as by websites and blogs that republished the story. A Google search on media reporting about the Kisii woman only brings up the sunset.co.ke story with others fact-checking the claim.

VERDICT: The caption claiming that a woman from Kisii had given birth to twins at the age of 64 is false and thus misleading.

[This story was produced by Business Today in partnership with Code for Africa’s iLAB data journalism programme, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie ]