The elderly couple had tried to conceive for years and last year they opted for IVF.
An Andhra couple, who made international headlines for becoming the world's oldest parents after their twin girls were born earlier this month, went home with their babies on Sunday. The babies were being cared for by the elderly couple's relatives.
Mangayamma, 74, and her husband Raja Rao, 80, had been kept in the hospital's intensive care unit. Doctors denied news reports that the father had suffered a heart attack. The mother had been kept in the ICU to avoid infection post-surgery.
"Raja Rao had a lung infection earlier. We had placed them in an ICU category room but they did not need any intensive care. The mother Mangayamma is also active and moving about though she was also in the ICU room," Dr Uma Shankar told NDTV.
Doctors said that the babies are doing well and were kept in the neonatal ICU to avoid unnecessary exposure.
Once the couple and the babies go home, their niece Lakshmi insists that there still won't be pressure on the elderly parents to take care of the babies by themselves, and she will continue to help them. "We have an extended family of 15-20 people who are all willing to take care of the babies," she said.
The elderly couple had tried to conceive for years and last year they opted for IVF. Mangayamma became pregnant in January this year, after the first cycle of the IVF procedure. Her general health, nutrition and cardiac health had been monitored by a team of doctors over the subsequent months. She gave birth to twins on September 5 at a hospital in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur.
Asked whether the couple had revealed the age of the mother when opting for IVF, Dr Uma Shankar said that elderly people often do not know their exact age and may not have a birth certificate.