The moment I met Maria del Carmen Bousada, I was entranced. She was tiny, attractive, with delicate skin and lively green eyes that sparkled at the sight of her twin boys doing their best to send the crockery flying. “Here they are, the two whirlwinds,” she said. “I do not know how much time I have left with them.”

Bousada, the oldest first-time mother in Europe, was more conscious of the ticking clock than most — not just because she was 69, but also because she was suffering from terminal ovarian cancer.

When I arranged to film her I wasn’t sure what to expect — a querulous elderly woman, perhaps, overwhelmed by the nappies and noise of infancy? Wrong: on arriving in her flat just a month ago, I found an elegant little chatterbox in a silky blouse and capri pants. As we talked, she bathed her boys, changed them and joined enthusiastically in all the silly games that toddlers play.

It was plain that the twins adored her; it was equally plain that this woman of nearly 70 was incontestably their mother. “I wish they were 18 already,” she told me. “Then I could have seen them grow up.” As they hugged her, I was thinking: surely no one could see these boys and wish they hadn’t been born?

Last week Christian and Pau became orphans. Their mother, who caused a furore in Spain when she gave birth days before her 67th birthday, died on Sunday, having secured their future. Each night in recent months the twins have been sleeping at the home of her 35-year-old nephew Ricardo and his wife, who will take over their upbringing.

Maria’s death has fuelled concern at the increasing number of elderly women choosing to have babies. In her case, a lifelong dream of becoming a mother — pursued only after her own mother’s death at 101 — turned quickly into a nightmare. Indeed, her brother is sure her cancer was caused by the hormones involved in IVF treatment.

Commentators have been quick to condemn Maria and all the other post-menopausal women who have IVF. In May it was the turn of Elizabeth Adeney, a British businesswoman who gave birth to a boy just weeks before her 67th birthday, to become front-page news. Last week a retired British academic called Jenny Brown, 72, announced that she was determined to get pregnant.

What drives these women to have babies when they should be enjoying their retirement? What do children think about having pensioner mothers? And why are these women so reviled — when old men who father children are more likely to be rewarded with applause?

Part of the reason they are treated with horror, I think, is visceral: most people can’t help wincing when they see a mother who looks like a granny. We don’t like associating old women with sex: we prefer them to wear sensible shoes, to bake cakes and act their age.

For the past few months I’ve been interviewing elderly mothers in America, Spain, Britain and India for a Channel 4 documentary. When I began, I’d just had a baby myself at 38 and, with a two-year-old in tow, was madly juggling the demands of work and motherhood.

It seemed best to start with a woman who had lived with the stigma for the longest time, Mary Shearing, 70, a Californian, and her 16-year-old twins Kelly and Amy. Mary was one of the first post-menopausal women to have IVF, but although critics warned she was “cheating nature” and would never keep up with her girls’ interests, it didn’t work out that way.

Mary spends an hour in the gym every morning and water-skis regularly. It’s only now, with the girls almost grown up, that their mother’s age is starting to worry them.

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