GB News presenter, 59, stuns colleagues with pregnancy announcement on air
A GB News presenter shocked and delighted her colleagues when she announced that she is expecting her third child at the age of 59.
Renee Hoenderkamp, an NHS GP and presenter on the channel, had been speaking about Piddington, a village in England that voted to 'leave' the UK as a gesture in protest at plans to build accommodation for asylum seekers near the village, when she made the annonucement.
"When I heard Angela Rayner's announcement in the week, I was viscerally angry with it. I couldn't believe it," she said.
"The reason for that is because obviously I am a woman, but I am also a mother, and I'm a mother of a grown up boy and a very young girl."
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Going on to make the big announcement, she said: "And I have some news to break to the panel today that they're not aware of, or anybody else of that matter, is that I'm actually going to be a mother of three shortly, and I am currently 12 weeks pregnant with my next child."
Her colleagues on GB News shared their congratulations with Hoenderkamp for the good news.
Hoenderkamp is already a mother of two and is no stranger to having children at a later age, explaining that she had her first child when she was 21 years old, and then had her second child after a gap of 30 years when she was 51 years old.
"He was born when I was 21," she said. "I was planning to deliver his brother or sister at the age of 51, when most people are thinking about grandchildren, rather than launching into another round of endless nappy changes and sleepless nights."
The GP and presenter said that this had given her different experiences of being pregnant from both when she was younger and older, and said she has no regrets about becoming a mum again later in life.
"Despite all the tut-tutting levelled at older mothers such as me, I can hand-on-heart say having a baby in my 50s is the best thing I have ever done. Yes, including having one in my 20s," she said.
In an advisory published in December 2025, the NHS Foundation Trust at Royal Berkshire wrote about people who become pregnant at age 40 or over, saying that many people 'chose to have a baby after the age of 40 and most will have healthy pregnancies'.
The advisory says that patients who are 40 or older when they become pregnant should be recommended a hospital referral by their midwife and to have 'consultant-led care where you will have the chance to talk about what this will mean for you and your baby'.
The oldest person to ever give birth is thought to be Erramatti Mangamma from India, who gave birth to twins on 5 September 2019.
Mangamma gave birth via C-section, and after news outlets reported that she was 73 years old her doctor produced her birth certificate to correct the record, which showed that she was not 73, but 74.
Kit Roberts
